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Appearance of herpes simplex keratitis on anterior segment optical coherence tomography

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Abstract

Purpose

To describe the anterior segment AS-OCT findings of herpetic simplex keratitis.

Methods

Forty-two eyes of 42 patients with proven herpetic keratitis of varying severity were included in this prospective, observational, non-comparative case series study. All subjects underwent ophthalmologic examination and AS-OCT imaging.

Results

Twenty-five of the 42 eyes (59.5%) had sub-epithelial infiltrates. In 11 of these cases, the overlying epithelium appeared intact, but in 14 cases, hydropic changes, heaping, and defects were observed. Seventeen eyes (40.5%) showed stromal involvement: six cases with scar at presentation and one case associated with uveitis. Stromal infiltrates were also seen, in ten cases, as a diffuse or local lentiform or spindle-shaped hyper-reflective area in the stroma.

Conclusion

Herpetic keratouveitis has characteristic features on AS-OCT images. This study demonstrates that herpetic keratitis also has characteristic AS-OCT features, including sub-epithelial infiltration and specific stromal hyper-reflective patterns. These features are not unique to herpetic keratitis, but AS-OCT imaging may provide useful supplementary information for diagnosing and monitoring herpetic keratitis.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Editage (www.editage.com) for English language editing.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ophthalmology, Faculty of Medicine, Assiut University, Assiut, Egypt

    Wael Soliman, Mohamed A. Nassr, Khaled Abdelazeem & Ashraf K. Al-Hussaini

  2. North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust, Peterborough, UK

    Mohamed A. Nassr

  3. Department of Ophthalmology, Assiut University Hospitals, Assiut, 71515, Egypt

    Khaled Abdelazeem

Authors
  1. Wael Soliman
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  2. Mohamed A. Nassr
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  3. Khaled Abdelazeem
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  4. Ashraf K. Al-Hussaini
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Khaled Abdelazeem.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

This study was reviewed and approved by the Assiut University Institutional Review Board (Assiut, Egypt). All study conduct adhered to the tenets of the Declaration of Helsinki.

Informed consent

Written informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in this study. Patients had the right to not participate in this study and the right to withdraw from the study without compromising regular, full clinical care.

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Soliman, W., Nassr, M.A., Abdelazeem, K. et al. Appearance of herpes simplex keratitis on anterior segment optical coherence tomography. Int Ophthalmol 39, 2923–2928 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10792-019-01142-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10792-019-01142-4

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