Progression of Pediatric Keratoconus After Corneal Cross-Linking: A Systematic Review and Pooled Analysis

This study aimed to establish the most commonly used criteria for progression and to conduct a systematic review of the literature with pooled analysis to assess children's keratoconus progression after CXL. Methods: A systemic literature review combined with pooled analysis was performed on full-length studies of KC after CXL treatment in a pediatric population and the methods used to report progression were analyzed. Results: Thirty-seven studies (2078 eyes) were identified on the rates of KC progression after CXL. The most common method to report progression was increased Kmax, Kmean, or Ksteep by ≥1.0 diopter (78.3% of studies). Using these criteria, the mean pooled progression rate after epithelium-off CXL was 9.9% (95% confidence interval: 6.1% –14.6%, total pooled sample size: 1508 eyes) with high heterogeneity between studies [I2 = 86.48% (95% confidence interval: 80.98 – 90.39), P
Source: Cornea - Category: Opthalmology Tags: Clinical Science Source Type: research