Corneal topography

Corneal topography, also known as photokeratoscopy or videokeratography, is a non-invasive medical imaging technique for mapping the surface curvature of the cornea, the outer structure of the eye. Since the cornea is normally responsible for some 70% of the eye's refractive power, its topology is of critical importance in determining the quality of vision. The three-dimensional map is therefore a valuable aid to the examining ophthalmologist or optometrist and can assist in the diagnosis and treatment of a number of conditions; in planning refractive surgery such as LASIK and evaluation of its results; or in assessing the fit of contact lenses. A development of keratoscopy, corneal topography extends the measurement range from the four points a few millimeters apart that is offered by keratometry to a grid of thousands of points covering the entire cornea. The procedure is carried out in seconds and is completely painless.

Method of operation
The patient is sat facing a bowl containing an illuminated pattern, most commonly a series of concentric rings. The pattern is focused on the anterior surface of the patient's cornea and reflected back to a digital camera at the centre of the bowl. The topology of the cornea is revealed by the shape taken by the reflected pattern. A computer provides the necessary analysis, typically determining the position and height of several thousand points across the cornea. The topographical map can be represented in a number of graphical formats, such as a sagittal map, which color-codes the steepness of curvature according to its dioptric value.

Development
The corneal topograph owes its heritage to 1880, when the Portuguese ophthalmologist Antonio Placido viewed a painted disk (Placido's disk) of alternating black and white rings reflected in the cornea. The rings showed as contour lines projected on the corneal epithelium. In 1896, Allvar Gullstrand incorporated the disk in his ophthalmoscope, examining photographs of the cornea via a microscope and was able to manually calculate the curvature by means of a numerical algorithm. Gullstrand recognized the potential of the technique and commented that despite its laboriousness it could "give a resultant accuracy that previously could not be obtained in any other way". The flat field of Placido's disk reduced the accuracy close to the corneal periphery and in the 1950s the Wesley-Jessen company made use of a curved bowl to reduce the field defects. The curvature of the cornea could be determined from comparison of photographs of the rings against standardized images.

In the 1980's, photographs of the projected images became hand-digitized and then analysed by computer. Automation of the process soon followed with the image captured by a digital camera and passed directly to a computer. In the 1990s, systems became commercially available from a number of suppliers. The first completely automatic system was the Corneal Modeling System (CMS-1) developed by Computed Anatomy, Inc. in New York City. The development team included Martin Gersten, Director of Research of the Aborn Lab at the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary, Richard Mammone, Ph.D. of the Rutgers University CAIP Center in Piscataway, NJ, and Steven P. Klyce, Ph.D. of the LSU Eye Center in New Orleans, LA. The price of the early instruments was initially very high ($75,000), largely confining their use to research establishments. However, prices have fallen substantially over time, bringing corneal topographs into the budget of smaller clinics and increasing the number of patients that can be examined.