HOW DOES MITOMYCIN C AFFECT THE POSTERIOR STROMAL KERATOCYTE DENSITY AFTER PHOTOREFRACTIVE KERATECTOMY? SCIENCE HELPING TO FACILITATE PUBLIC HEALTH COSTS IN OPHTHALMOLOGY

Kianoush Shahraki, Alireza Ansari Moghaddam, Hanie Ahmadi, Paria Ghasemi Boroumand, Masoumeh Shahdadi, Kourosh Shahraki*

ABSTRACT

Background: Mitomycin C is used to prevent corneal opacity. The present study seeks to investigate the influence of Mitomycin C on the number of Keratocyst in the posterior layer of corneal stroma after photorefractive keratectomy (PRK). Materials and Methodology: The cohort method was utilized to conduct this study. 26 eyes among those resorting to the eye hospital of Al-Zahra in Zahedan were selected and convenient sampling was carried out among those patients who had undergone photorefractive keratectomy (PRK). The number of Keratocyst layers in the posterior corneal layer of the patients was counted before the operation and three months after that. Student T-test was utilized to analyze the data. Results: Before the operation, the average spherical equivalent of refractive errors was -3.6 and the average corneal thickness of the patient was 538 with the average depth of corneal removal being . The average number of the Keratocysts in the posterior layer of corneal stroma before and three months after the operation were and repectively. No significant difference was observed between the number of Keratocysts before and after the operation (p=0.838). Conclusion: Using Mitomycin 0.02 C for 20 seconds during RPK in patients suffering from low myopia does not result in statistically significant changes in the number of Keratocysts in the posterior corneal layer in the 3-month follow up. Thus it doesn’t seem necessary to impose Mitomycine C to patient’s costs of surgery.

Keywords: Photorefractive Keratectomy, Mitomycin C, Confoscan III.