Assessment of the epithelium's contribution to corneal biomechanics

Ahmed ElSheikh, Daad Alhasso, Paolo Rama

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    101 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Determining the epithelium's contribution to corneal biomechanics is important for the predictive numerical simulation of corneal biomechanical behaviour in which the cornea's five main layers are represented separately. Twenty-four corneal buttons were tested under posterior inflation conditions while monitoring their behaviour using non-contact methods. The corneas were divided into two groups of 12; one with and one without the epithelium. Control of specimen hydration, temperature and pressure application rate, and limiting the programme to specimens within a small age range resulted in a narrow scatter of test results. On average, intact specimens were able to carry slightly more pressure at the same deformation, and experienced less average stress for the same strain, compared with specimens without the epithelium. These results indicated that the stiffness of the epithelium was considerably lower than that of the stroma, and might therefore be ignored in numerical simulation studies.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)445-51
    Number of pages7
    JournalExperimental Eye Research
    Volume86
    Issue number2
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Feb 2008

    Keywords

    • Aged, 80 and over
    • Biomechanical Phenomena
    • Cornea
    • Elasticity
    • Epithelium, Corneal
    • Humans
    • Models, Biological
    • Pressure
    • Stress, Mechanical

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