Two Cases of Pellucid Marginal Corneal Degeneration

ABSTRACT

Pellucid marginal degeneration is an uncommon, idiopathic, non-inflammatory, peripheral thinning disorder affecting the inferior cornea bilaterally. Protrusion of the cornea occurs above a band of thinning which is located 1 to 2mm from the limbus and measures 1 to 2mm in width. The disease is diagnosed usually between 20 and 50 years of age and its etiology remains obscure. We experienced two cases of pellucid marginal degeneration who had a histories of progressIve visual disturbance due to high irregular astigmatism. A 32 year old female(case.1) had the characteristic feature of pellucid marginal corneal degeneration with marked endothelial cell loss(OD. 624 +/- 32 cells/mm2, OS. 596 +/- 52 cells/mm2) in polymorphism. A 30 year old male(Case. 2) showed pellucid marginal corneal degeneration associated with rheumatoid athritis, but corneal endothelial cells appeared within normal ranges(OD. 2764 +/- 26, OS. 2812 +/- 34) with slight polymorphism. The Vision in these two cases improved to 20/20 with hard contact lens(Case. 1) and glasses(Case.2)