Purpose: To comprehensively assess the precision and agreement of anterior corneal power measurements using 8 different devices.
Methods: Thirty-five eyes from 35 healthy subjects were included in the prospective study. In the first session, a single examiner performed on each subject randomly measurements with the RC-5000 (Tomey Corp., Japan), KR-8000 (Topcon, Japan), IOLMaster (Carl Zeiss Meditec, Germany), E300 (Medmont International, Australia), Allegro Topolyzer (Wavelight AG, Germany), Vista (EyeSys, TX), Pentacam (Oculus, Germany) and Sirius (CSO, Italy). Measurements were repeated in the second session (1 to 2 weeks later). Repeatability and reproducibility of corneal power measurements were assessed based on the intrasession and intersession within-subject standard deviation (Sw), repeatability (2.77Sw), coefficient of variation (COV), and intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). Agreement was evaluated by 95% limits of agreement (LoA).
Results: All devices demonstrated high repeatability and reproducibility of the keratometric values (2.77Sw<0.36D, COV<0.3%, ICC>0.98). Repeated-measures analysis of variance with Bonferroni post test showed statistically significant differences (P<0.01) among mean keratometric values of most instruments; the largest differences were observed between the EyeSys Vista and Medmont E300. Good agreement (i.e., 95%LoA within ± 0.5D) was found between most instruments for flat, steep and mean keratometry, except for EyeSys and Medmont. Repeatability and reproducibility of vectors J(0) and J(45) was good, as the ICCs were higher than 0.9, except J(45) of Medmont and Pentacam. For the 95% LoAs of J(0) and J(45), they were all ≤ ± 0.31 among any two paired devices.
Conclusions: The 8 devices showed excellent repeatability and reproducibility. The results obtained using the RC-5000, KR-8000, IOLMaster, Allegro Topolyzer, Pentacam and Sirius were comparable, suggesting that they could be used interchangeably in most clinical settings. Caution is warranted with the measurements of the EyeSys Vista and Medmont E300, which should not be used interchangeably with other devices due to lower agreement.
Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01587287.