Parametric fitting of corneal height data to a biconic surface

Linear fitting of biconic surfaces for corneal modeling

This paper presents a method for reconstructing the corneal surface. The proposed method was tested in 56 healthy and 15 post-orthokeratology corneas. The Medmont E300 Corneal Topographer was used to measure the anterior corneal elevation, and custom MATLAB scripts were employed for data analysis, fitting, and other computational processes. The results obtained were compared with the fitting to an ellipsoid and to a biconic, using an alternative method, showing similarities among the different approaches. Additionally, the advantages of this method and the biconic's generality over the ellipsoid were also demonstrated. In conclusion, the method proposed offers an approach with potential applications in the field of visual and ophthalmic optics related with modeling of the cornea and other optical surfaces.

Bootstrapping of Corneal Optical Coherence Tomography Data to Investigate Conic Fit Robustness

BACKGROUND

Fitting of parametric model surfaces to corneal tomographic measurement data is required in order to extract characteristic surface parameters. The purpose of this study was to develop a method for evaluating the uncertainties in characteristic surface parameters using bootstrap techniques.

METHODS

We included 1684 measurements from a cataractous population performed with the tomographer Casia2. Both conoid and biconic surface models were fitted to the height data. The normalised fit error (height-reconstruction) was bootstrapped 100 times and added to the reconstructed height, extracting characteristic surface parameters (radii and asphericity for both cardinal meridians and axis of the flat meridian) for each bootstrap. The width of the 90% confidence interval of the 100 bootstraps was taken as uncertainty and quoted as a measure of the robustness of the surface fit.

RESULTS

As derived from bootstrapping, the mean uncertainty for the radii of curvature was 3 µm/7 µm for the conoid and 2.5 µm/3 µm for the biconic model for the corneal front/back surface, respectively. The corresponding uncertainties for the asphericity were 0.008/0.014 for the conoid and 0.001/0.001 for the biconic. The respective mean root mean squared fit error was systematically lower for the corneal front surface as compared to the back surface (1.4 µm/2.4 µm for the conoid and 1.4 µm/2.6 µm for the biconic).

CONCLUSION

Bootstrapping techniques can be applied to extract uncertainties of characteristic model parameters and yield an estimate for robustness as an alternative to evaluating repeat measurements. Further studies are required to investigate whether bootstrap uncertainties accurately reproduce those from repeat measurement analysis.

Numerical Study of Customized Artificial Cornea Shape by Hydrogel Biomaterials on Imaging and Wavefront Aberration

The blindness caused by cornea diseases has exacerbated many patients all over the world. The disadvantages of using donor corneas may cause challenges to recovering eye sight. Developing artificial corneas with biocompatibility may provide another option to recover blindness. The techniques of making individual artificial corneas that fit the biometric parameters for each person can be used to help these patients effectively. In this study, artificial corneas with different shapes (spherical, aspherical, and biconic shapes) are designed and they could be made by two different hydrogel polymers that form an interpenetrating polymer network for their excellent mechanical strength. Two designed cases for the artificial corneas are considered in the simulations: to optimize the artificial cornea for patients who still wear glasses and to assume that the patient does not wear glasses after transplanting with the optimized artificial cornea. The results show that the artificial corneas can efficiently decrease the imaging blur. Increasing asphericity of the current designed artificial corneas can be helpful for the imaging corrections. The differences in the optical performance of the optimized artificial corneas by using different materials are small. It is found that the optimized artificial cornea can reduce the high order aberrations for the second case.

Comparison of Corneal Tomography: Repeatability, Precision, Misalignment, Mean Elevation, and Mean Pachymetry

PURPOSE

To compare corneal tomography and its statistical uncertainty for measurements obtained by three clinically used corneal tomographers: A Scheimpflug camera (Pentacam HR), a swept source optical coherence tomography system (CASIA SS-1000), and Placido ring imaging (TMS-5).

MATERIAL AND METHODS

Repeated measurements with all three devices on 34 normal eyes were used to estimate the repeatability, precision, and mean values of corneal elevation and pachymetry within 8 mm diameter. The repeatability (standard deviation) was calculated for each data point of the corneal elevation data-maps of anterior and posterior cornea as well as for the pachymetry data-maps. Uncertainty on the position of the eye at each measurement might contribute to the differences between elevation data-maps. To take this into account, we defined the precision as the standard deviation for the elevation data-maps of anterior and posterior cornea after correction of misalignment-effects (rotation, translation). The mean elevation and pachymetry data-maps were fitted with Zernike polynomials for interdevice-comparison.

RESULTS

Pentacam HR offered the best repeatability and precision for the anterior corneal elevation (<3 and <1.6 μm, respectively). CASIA SS-1000 offered good repeatability and precision with high resolution for posterior corneal elevation, and the best repeatability for pachymetry (<3 μm). TMS-5 measured anterior elevation with similar repeatability to CASIA SS-1000 (<6 μm). The data-maps of the three tomographers could not be used interchangeably. The largest differences were observed for pachymetry and posterior corneal elevation data-maps.

CONCLUSIONS

Misalignment limited the repeatability of TMS-5 and Pentacam HR, but had little influence on the repeatability of CASIA SS-1000.

Optical coherence tomography-based topography determination of corneal grafts in eye bank cultivation

Vision loss due to corneal injuries or diseases can be treated by transplantation of human corneal grafts (keratoplasty). However, quality assurance in retrieving and cultivating the tissue transplants is confined to visual and microbiological testing. To identify previous refractive surgery or morphological alterations, an automatic, noncontact, sterile screening procedure is required. Twenty-three corneal grafts have been measured in organ culture with a clinical spectral-domain optical coherence tomographer. Employing a biconic surface fit with 10 degrees of freedom, the radii of curvature and conic constants could be estimated for the anterior and posterior corneal surfaces. Thereupon, central corneal thickness, refractive values, and astigmatism have been calculated. Clinical investigations are required to elaborate specific donor–host matching in the future.