Moorfields team develop ‘prediction calculator’ for keratoconus

A Moorfields and UCL Institute of Ophthalmology team led by Daniel Gore have developed a ‘prediction calculator’ to give keratoconus patients a personalised risk calculation to make informed decisions about treatment.

Keratoconus is a condition that causes the cornea to thin and impair vision. It is one of the most common reasons for corneal transplants in younger patients, and usually presents itself in their early teens. While milder cases can be managed by contact lenses or glasses, in more advanced cases a corneal transplant may be required to restore vision. A treatment called corneal cross-linking (CXL) is able to effectively stop disease progression, but is not always suitable.

The calculator creates a unique graph for each eye of each patient based on their individual risk factors to assess their likely prognosis, helping both clinicians and patients to decide when and if to proceed with CXL. This calculator is part of a wider project to offer more personalised management plans to patients to improve outcomes.

'We hope this work will help patients to gain more meaningful understanding of their disease and how it might impact them,” said Olivia Li, cornea fellow at Moorfields Eye Hospital. “It should also support clinicians to make treatment decisions with greater confidence earlier in the disease process and reduce preventable visual loss.”

This work was supported by Moorfields Eye Charity and Friends of Moorfields. The team’s findings have been published in the American Journal of Ophthalmology.