Relationship between Palpebral Fissure Height and Corneal Astigmatism of Epiblepharon

Purpose: To study the effect of plapebral fissure height on astigmatism in epiblepharon patients. Methods: The study consisted of 68 eyes of 34 patients who were diagnosed with epiblepharon and 88 eyes of 44 patients who had normal eyelids from September 2012 to July 2013. Data on palpebral fissure height and refractive errors were compared between the epiblepharon group and the control group. Epiblepharon patients were further divided into two subgroups depending on the degree of preoperative corneal erosion in order to study the effects of corneal erosion on corneal astigmatism. Results: The mean age was 5.6 +/- 2.2 years in the epiblepharon group and 6.1 +/- 1.5 years in the control group (p = 0.339). The mean astigmatism was 2.28 +/- 1.54 D in the epiblepharon group and 0.91 +/- 1.07 D in the control group. The epiblepharon group showed higher astigmatism than the control group (p < 0.001). The mean palepebral fissure height was 6.70 +/- 1.19 mm in the epiblepharon group and 7.63 +/- 1.06 mm in the control group. The epiblepharon group exhibited smaller palpebral fissure height than the control group (p < 0.001). In the palpebral fissure height subgroups of the epiblepharon group, the < 7.0 mm group showed higher astigmatism than the >= 7.0 mm group (p = 0.026). Higher astigmatism was associated with smaller palpebral fissure height (p = 0.022). Conclusions: Patients with epiblepharon had significantly higher corneal astigmatism, and higher astigmatism was associated with smaller palpebral fissure height.