Conjunctival Impression Cytology in Patients with Thyroid Disorders

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Department of Ophthalmology, Faculty of Medicine for Girls, Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt

2 Department of Histopathology, Faculty of Medicine for Girls, Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt

Abstract

Background: Impression cytology is a noninvasive technique for assessing the ocular surface cells and can be used for recognition of changes that occur in the conjunctiva especially among patients who had thyroid diseases.
Aim of the work: To assess the efficacy of impression cytology in the diagnosis of ocular surface changes in patients with thyroid diseases in relation to other noninvasive diagnostic methods.
Patients and Methods: The study included 30 patients [60 eyes] with thyroid disease [both hypo- and hyper-thyroidism] aged 20–40 years, in which an ocular tear film was evaluated. In addition, 30 subjects [60 eyes] in age from 20–40 years were also examined as control group. All patients finished the routine ophthalmological assessment, fluorescein tear breakup time [TBUT], Schirmer test and conjunctival impression cytology [CIC].
Results: The eyes in the thyroid disorder patients showed grade 1, 2 and 3 in CIC with decreasing Schirmer test and tear breakup time test values less than 10 seconds, while the control group showed grade 0 in the CIC with increasing Schirmer test and tear breakup time test values more than 10 seconds [P-value < 0.01].
Conclusion: Impression cytology is a non-invasive method for evaluating ocular surface cell morphology and can be used to recognize, and assess the severity of the changes occurring in the conjunctiva in patients with thyroid disease. 

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