Evaluation of central corneal thickness in children and adolescents with type I diabetes mellitus

Abstract To evaluate corneal thickness in diabetic and nondiabetic patients. The central corneal thickness (CCT) was investigated in 100 eyes of 100 patients with diabetes type I and in 99 nondiabetic patients (99 eyes). The mean diabetic patients age was 15.31 +/- 3.18 years. The mean age in control group was 14.3 +/- 2.2 years. Corneal thickness was measured by non-contact microscope Topcon SP-2000P Statistical analysis was performed to assess systemic factors (patient age, sex, duration of diabetes mellitus, hemoglobin A1c value, diabetes control) related to CCT. SAS STAT (Release 8.2) program, the independent t-test, Kolmogorow-Smirnow test and Bartlett test were used to compare differences between the diabetic and control group. In our study the mean CCT in diabetic eyes was 0.54 +/- 0.03 mm and was significantly increased, compared to control group (0.525 +/- 0.037 mm). None of systemic factors was correlated with CCT. Our findings indicate that diabetes mellitus affects thickness of cornea in adolescents. Evaluation of endothelium in specular microscope should be performed in the diabetic patients.