Keratoconus (from Greek: kerato- horn, cornea; and konos cone) is a degenerative corneal disorder part of dystrophies group. Structural changes within the cornea cause it to thin and change to a more conical shape.
Keratoconus can cause substantial distortion of vision, with multiple images, streaking and sensitivity to light. The disease usually occurs at an age between 12 and 20 years old and its progression takes between 20-30 years. In the early stages of the disease, eyesight disorders can be corrected with glasses or contact lenses. But the gradual progression of keratoconus leads to failure in correction, photophobia and eye irritation. Pronounced corneal thinning and protrusion cause fissures of internal layers of the cornea, haze because of the central fissures and substantial vision loss.
The exact cause of the occurrence of keratoconus is not known. The genetic nature of the disease and the possibility of its inheritance is big, because the emergence of keratoconos can be monitored in several generations of a family. However, most of the cases involves sporadic (individual) occurrence of the disease.
Keratoconus is often bilateral, though asymmetrical: if keratoconus occurs in one eye, you might develop it in the other eye much later.
The disease begins to manifest itself by the fact that the patient start to feel a slight blur of the outline of objects. Symptoms of keratoconos in the early stages often does not allow us to differentiate it from other diseases, more frequent, involving defects of refraction. Once the disease progresses, vision decreases, sometimes very fast. Vision acuity becomes unsatisfactory, vision at night is much weaker than during the day. Sometimes one eye sees much worse than the other. In later stages may develop photophobia and constant tiredness of the eyes because of the need to focus, itching, and burning eyes.
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