94% of researchers rate our articles as excellent or good
Learn more about the work of our research integrity team to safeguard the quality of each article we publish.
Find out more
ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Med.
Sec. Ophthalmology
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmed.2025.1531673
This article is part of the Research TopicNew Concepts, Advances, and Future Trends in Clinical Research on Eye DiseasesView all 29 articles
Changes of bilateral tear film stability and corneal nerve in patients with unilateral neurotrophic keratitis
Provisionally accepted
Fan Wang1
Yue Li1*Zhaowei Zhang1Qiuchen Lu1Cancan Shi1Xiaofan Yu1Fen Hu1Mingxin Li1Jianxin Guo1Zhenhao Zhang2
He Wang2*- 1The Affiliated Hospital of Xuzhou Medical University, Xuzhou, China
- 2Zhoupu Hospital, Shanghai University of Medicine and Health Sciences, Shanghai, Shanghai, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Objective: To observe the stability of the tear film bilaterally in patients with unilateral neurotrophic keratitis and the changes in corneal nerve and immune cells under confocal microscopy.: Prospective cross-sectional study including 63 patients with confirmed neurotrophic keratitis (NK) and 40 normal controls of similar sex and age, the NK patients were divided into stage 1 and stage 2 according to the severity of the disease. The tear meniscus height (TMH), first non-invasive tear film break-up time (NIBUT-f), and corneal fluorescence staining were examined. Corneal sensitivity was accessed by Cochet Bonnet esthesiometer. The corneal subbasal plexus (SNP) and dendritic cells (DC) were scanned by in vivo confocal microscopy (IVCM), and SNP was analyzed using the fully automated corneal nerve analysis software "ACCmetric". Results: Eyes with NK stage 2 showed worse performance in TMH, NIBUT-f, corneal fluorescein staining score, corneal sensitivity examination, SNP parameters, and DC density compared to NK stage 1 (all P < 0.001). And contralateral eyes of NK patients had significantly shorter NIBUT-f and significantly increased dendritic cell density compared to controls (P < 0.001).The contralateral eyes of NK patients are more prone to dry eye signs than normal subjects and should be attended to and treated promptly. Increased numbers of dendritic cells in the contralateral eyes of NK patients suggest bilateral immune alterations in unilateral disease.
Keywords: Neurotrophic keratitis, confocal microscopy, corneal sensitivity, Tear film, Ocular surface
Received: 20 Nov 2024; Accepted: 10 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Wang, Li, Zhang, Lu, Shi, Yu, Hu, Li, Guo, Zhang and Wang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Yue Li, The Affiliated Hospital of Xuzhou Medical University, Xuzhou, China
He Wang, Zhoupu Hospital, Shanghai University of Medicine and Health Sciences, Shanghai, 201318, Shanghai, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.