Aberrant Corneal Homeostasis in Neurosurgery-Induced Neurotrophic Keratopathy

The characteristic features of neurotrophic keratopathy have been well documented by in vivo and in vitro studies using animal models. However, case reports of neurotrophic keratopathy induced by neurosurgery are limited. We describe the clinical characteristics, anterior segment optical coherence tomography (AS-OCT) and in vivo confocal microscopy (IVCM) findings of neurotrophic keratopathy induced by surgery for intracranial lesions. This is a case series including 6 eyes of 3 patients (mean age, 69.67 ± 12.50 years) with unilateral neurotrophic keratopathy. The clinical findings of three patients were described and IVCM findings of three patients were analyzed. The duration of neuropathy ranged from 2 to 30 years (median, 22 years). Thickening of the epithelial layer and higher reflection density of the anterior stroma were observed during the healing process using AS-OCT. The mean nerve fiber density of the subepithelial plexus, as determined by IVCM, was 1943 ± 1000 μm/mm(2) for neurotrophic eyes and 2242 ± 600.3 μm/mm(2) for contralateral eyes (p = 0.0347). The mean respective dendritic cell densities were 30.8 ± 21.8 and 6.25 ± 5.59 cells/mm(2) (p < 0.0001), while the mean basal cell sizes were 259 ± 86.5 and 185 ± 45.9 μm(2) (p < 0.0001), respectively. These findings suggest that neurosurgery-induced neurotrophic keratopathy may be associated with alterations in the healing process and immune cell distribution in the cornea.