The Relationship Among Race, Iris Color, Central Corneal Thickness, and Intraocular Pressure

Abstract

These results suggest that iris color is not associated with CCT and apparently iris color does not influence measured IOP. We were able to establish a relationship between race and IOP when adjusting IOP for CCT. Our data show a significantly higher CCT-adjusted IOP for blacks than whites demonstrating a racial difference in CCT-corrected IOP.

The Relationship between Central Corneal Thickness and Intraocular Pressure in Adult Nigerians without Glaucoma

“…This difference in mean age probably explains why their mean CCT was smaller than the current value (548.2 32.0 m). The average CCT of this study was smaller than the 563.0 38.0 and 562.8 31.3µm reported for Caucasians by Aghaian et al (2004) and Semes et al (2006). This value was close to that of the Taiwanese Chinese (554.0 29.0µm) (Chen et al, 2009).…”

IOP, Myopic Progression and Axial Length in a COMET Subgroup

“…56 Several investigators have also reported that the corneal thickness is less of a factor when IOP is measured with Tono-Pen compared with Goldmann. 63,64 With this in mind, it is of interest that several authors 43,44 found that when the IOP measured by Goldmann was adjusted for the corneal thickness, a small but statistically significant difference in IOP between Blacks and Whites was noted (that was not present in the unadjusted IOP measures), with the IOP of Blacks greater than Whites. Given the greater association between myopia and glaucoma 2,10,32-35 and the greater prevalence of low tension glaucoma 65 and glaucoma 66,67 in Blacks as well as delays in diagnosis of glaucoma 43,52 in Blacks, additional exploration of ethnic differences in IOP in myopic subjects appears warranted.…”

“…This is of interest because a few studies that have investigated ethnicity and IOP have reported that the measured IOP of Blacks is similar to other ethnic groups. 43,44 However, the measured IOP is influenced by the corneal thickness [45][46][47][48][49][50] and there are several reports in the literature that have found that the adult cornea of Blacks is thinner than that of Whites 43,51,52 and most other ethnic groups. 43,53 As the corneal thickness has been reported to reach adult values between 2 and 4 years of age, 54 the ethnic differences reported for corneal thickness in adults would be expected in the sample reported here.…”

Central corneal thickness among Aboriginal people attending eye clinics in remote South Australia

“…14,15,17,19,22 Central corneal thickness has also been noted to vary among the different races. 5,[24][25][26][27][28] For example, the mean CCT of African American and Mongolian eyes has been found to be significantly thinner than that of Caucasian eyes. 5,24,25,[27][28][29] The Ocular Hypertension Treatment Study found that the CCT of African American participants was on average 23 mm thinner than Caucasian participants.…”