Abstract

Purpose: To investigate the corneal endothelial features in CHED patients compared to age-matched healthy controls.
Methods: A retrospective, comparative case-controlled study involving 9 eyes of 7 children with CHED and 18 eyes of 11 age-matched healthy controls. Results: The mean age was 8.8 ± 0.82 years, with females comprising 66.7%. Endothelial cell parameters differed significantly between CHED patients and age-matched controls. The number of cells (26.3 ± 12 vs. 302.8 ± 8.5) and endothelial cell density (ECD) (1112.7 ± 131.6 mm2 vs. 3191.2 ± 102 mm2) were significantly lower in CHED patients (all, p<0.0001). In contrast, average cell size (1253.3 ± 147.3 µm2 vs. 312.8 ± 104.1 µm2), SD of cell size (684.5 ± 91.2 µm2 vs. 106.2 ± 65 µm2), coefficient of variance (54.9 ± 2.6% vs. 33.7 ± 1.9%), MXCA (2648.1 ± 256.7 µm2 vs 892.4 ± 184.2 µm2) (all, p<0.0001), and MICA (460.9 ± 91.2 vs 98.3 ± 71.8, p=0.002) were significantly higher in CHED patients.