Diabetes Screening With the Corneal Aesthesiometer

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

We investigated the possibility of significant corneal trauma (as revealed by slit lamp observation of the fluorescein instilled eye), and massage effects following determination of intraocular pressure with the A.O. Non-Contact tonometer (NCT). Fifteen different, normal human eyes were each applanated 150 successive times with the NCT; leading to the conclusion that only minor, superficial corneal epithelial defects sometimes resulted and that, in line with other studies, the initially higher readings (about 1 mm), obtained with the NCT, were most likely due to patient apprehension, while the subsequently lower readings represented patient acceptance of the process and were not a result of true aqueous massage. As in an earlier study, we found the instrument's variability to be about ±1 or ±2 mm and probably due to the subject's own cardiac cycle.