Abstract

Clinical Results After 5% Sodium Chloride Treatment in Post-operative Corneal Oedema

Gaelle Ho Wang Yin and Natanael Levy

Background: Evaluate the effectiveness of a hyperosmolar 5% sodium chloride treatment in corneal oedema.
Design: This prospective, randomized study was conducted in a universitary ophthalmology department setting.
Participants: 95 patients with post-operative corneal oedema were separated in 2 groups: 45 patients in group 1 treated with hypertonic eye drops; 50 patients in group 2 without anti-oedematous.
Methods: Patients in group 1 were treated with 5% sodium chloride hypertonic eye drops associated with 0.15% sodium hyaluronate in addition to the classical post-operative treatment for 1 month; and patients in group 2 were only treated with classical post-operative treatment (antibiotic, corticosteroids and artificial tears).
Main outcome measures: Visual acuity, pachymetry and density were measured at 1 day, 7 days, 1 month, 3 months and 6 months following surgery.
Results: Visual acuity was significantly better in group 1 than in group 2 at 7 days (0.85 ± 0.64 logMAR vs. 1.46 ± 0.8 logMAR, p=0.024) and one month (0.42 ± 0.35 logMAR vs. 1.03 ± 0.86 logMAR, p=0.04) but was no longer different at three and six months. Pachymetry decreased significantly in 7 days in group 1 (decrease of 17%, p=0.04), contrary to group 2 (p=0.96), but the difference between the 2 groups was not statistically significant (p=0.15). Corneal density was also not significantly different between the two groups.
Conclusion: 5% sodium chloride hypertonic eye drops reduces significantly post-operative corneal oedema treatment as shown by the improvement in visual acuity at one week and the downward trend in pachymetry.

Published Date: 2017-12-29; Received Date: 2017-12-19