Assessment of the Reproducibility of Corneal Endothelial Cell Analysis with Non-Contact Specular Nicroscope

ABSTRACT

The noncontact autofocus specular microscope with incorporated semiautomated image analyzing program provide a rapid morphometric endothelial analysis. We evaluated the reproducibility of endothelial cell analysis with Konan noncon Robo-ca sp 8000 noncontact specular microscope. Specular microscopic examinations were performed three times each in twenty eyes by two examinations were performed three times one examiner. The difference of mean coefficient of variation of cell density evaluated by two examiners were not statistically significant(4.83% and 3.81, p=0.16). But, mean coefficient of variation of CV(coefficient variation of cell size, poluyimegathim) and hexagonality(pleomorphism) were statistically significantly different between two examiners(12.46%, 17.90%, p=0.04 and 12.30%, 8.40%, p=0.01, respectively). Repeatability evaluated by one examiner in two eyes showed small coefficient of variation of cell density(3.67% & 3.69%) and large coefficient of variation of CV(11.41% & 15.00%) and hexagonality(7.79% & 10.24%). In conclusion, our study has shown that Konan noncon Robo-ca sp 8000 noncontact specular microscope allows accurate estimation of endothelial cell density, But reproducibility of coefficient of variation of cell size and hexagonality analysis were lower than that of cell density analysis.