The Use of Digital Microscopy to Compare the Thicknesses of Normal Corneas and Ex Vivo Rejected Corneal Grafts with a Focus on the Descemet’s Membrane

Table 1

Comparison of the ages, sides, and measurements of the layers obtained by digital microscopy between normal corneas and corneas from failed grafts due to rejection.

	Normal corneas ()	Corneas from failed grafts due to rejection ()	value
Age (years, mean ± DP)	81.8 (±6.0)	66.2 (±14.6)	<0.001
Side
Right (%)	13 (52.0)	20 (50.0)	0.875
Left (%)	12 (48.0)	20 (50.0)
Mean corneal thickness
Epithelium (μm, 40x)
Central (mean ± SD)	32.207 (±7.165)	47.683 (±15.518)	<0.001
Nasal (mean ± SD)	44.091 (±7.832)	48.228 (±21.514)	0.360
Temporal (mean ± SD)	43.228 (±10.802)	48.918 (±20.797)	0.211
Stroma (mm, 10x)
Central (mean ± SD)	0.616 (±0.075)	0.561 (±0.163)	0.831
Nasal (mean ± SD)	0.911 (±0.119)	0.588 (±0.175)	<0.001
Temporal (mean ± SD)	0.964 (±0.143)	0.607 (±0.162)	<0.001
Descemet’s membrane (μm, 40x)
Central (mean ± SD)	8.410 (±2.016)	8.545 (±2.712)	0.820
Nasal (mean ± SD)	14.363 (±4.885)	9.883 (±3.186)	<0.001
Temporal (mean ± SD)	13.337 (±3.184)	9.506 (±2.625)	<0.001

n = number of cases; SD = standard deviation; mm = millimeter; μm = micrometer; 10x, 40x = microscopemagnification. The Kolmogorov–Smirnov test was used to test the equality of probability distribution, whereas the comparisons of two independent variables were performed using Student’s t-test for continuous variables and the chi-squared test for categorical variables. Levene’s test was used to analyze homogeneity.