Interocular Symmetry Analysis of Corneal Elevation Using the Fellow Eye as the Reference Surface and Machine Learning

Unilateral corneal indices and topography maps are routinely used in practice, however, although there is consensus that fellow-eye asymmetry can be clinically significant, symmetry studies are limited to local curvature and single-point thickness or elevation measures. To improve our current practices, there is a need to devise algorithms for generating symmetry colormaps, study and categorize their patterns, and develop reference ranges for new global discriminative indices for identifying abnormal corneas. In this work, we test the feasibility of using the fellow eye as the reference surface for studying elevation symmetry throughout the entire corneal surface using 9230 raw Pentacam files from a population-based cohort of 4613 middle-aged adults. The 140 x 140 matrix of anterior elevation data in these files were handled with Python to subtract matrices, create color-coded maps, and engineer features for machine learning. The most common pattern was a monochrome circle (flat) denoting excellent mirror symmetry. Other discernible patterns were named tilt, cone, and four-leaf. Clustering was done with different combinations of features and various algorithms using Waikato Environment for Knowledge Analysis (WEKA). Our proposed approach can identify cases that may appear normal in each eye individually but need further testing. This work will be enhanced by including data of posterior elevation, thickness, and common diagnostic indices.

Automated summary

This study utilized a large number of Pentacam files from a population-based cohort to investigate elevation symmetry of the corneal surface. Using Python for data processing and machine learning algorithms for analysis, the most common pattern observed was a monochrome circle, with other discernible patterns including tilt, cone, and four-leaf.