Description

Keratoconus patients are challenging to any cornea specialist, trying to apply his best experience to get satisfactory results. The aim of any cornea specialist is not to diagnose an established keratoconus case, but to early detect any suspicious one during routine screening. Early detection of suspected cases gives an opportunity for proper counseling and management. In suspect cases visual acuity is not markedly affected so, it is a golden period to mainatin a functioning vision. This book will discuss keratoconus in a stepwise approach starting with classification of ectatic corneal diseases this will be followed by detailed information about keratoconus epidemiology including its incidence in pediatric age group, the importance of family history and risk factors as eye rubbing and atopy. Clinical examination of keratoconus patients may be completely normal so, this book will discuss the most important clinical examinations that should be done and signsthat may be found either early or late. Patterns of keratoconus are classified to the most practical classification that helps in better recognition of keratoconus. It’s important to grade keratoconus patients in order to take the right decision, you will find in this book most of the clinical gradings written in literature including the old and up to date ones. Till now no gold standard criteria present to assess the progression of keratoconus, this book collects the most clinically accepted criteria including the up to date software available to monitor Preface II keratoconus progression. One of the most important chapters in this book is the diagnostic tools from routine topography and tomography to studying corneal epithelium and studying corneal biomechanics with brillouin microscopy and ending up with artificial intelligence that plays an important role in aiding the diagnosis not only in ophthalmology but in other medical fields. Nowadays we are facing multiple armamentarial modalities for treating keratoconus. Corneal cross linking is one of the main arms in treating keratoconus. This book will get you deep to better understand cross linking from its evolution till nowadays with the most recent protocols. Corneal cross linking in pediatric keratoconus is also discussed with the most acceptable protocols in literature. From my readings in literature, I found no book that collects intracorneal ring segments with the discussion of the different nomograms and how to apply it clinically.Luckily this book included all up to date information about ICRS available in our practice and how to clinically apply different nomograms. Refractive surgeries in keratoconus, one of the most debatable treatment between cornea specialists is discussed thoroughly for better understanding. This book also will spot out controversies between different treatment modalities. Lastly, we will end with a step wise approach to a case with keratoconus that sums up how can we deal with keratoconus patients in our clinic. Although I chose the name of the book Keratoconus “The Whole Story” to give an information for the reader that this book collects every detailed and up to date information about keratoconus yet as a cornea specialist I know that the story will never end, and I expect that more innovations will appear in the diagnosis and treatment of keratoconus. What makes this book different is that it is explained in series of videos on my YouTube channel in both Arabic and English languages, an option that make the reader can read and at the same time listen to every detailed information, so, I advise readers of this book to read as well as to listen to the videos as they are both complementary. An information that may be vague in the book will be Preface III discussed in detail in the video. Throughout the book you will find following a subtitle or a paragraph “For an illustrative video see YouTube channel” this refers to the importance of the video for better understanding. You will find the link of the YouTube channel at the end of this introduction. During editing the book, a new protocol in cross linking was released “Sub400 Protocol”, it was added to the book, but it wasn’t discussed in the videos. This book is intended to ophthalmologists especially beginners who have an interest in cornea although cornea specialists will find it interesting too. Optometrists can take advantage of the book to help them suspect keratoconus patients and their early referral to a cornea specialist, also the part of the book discussing contact lenses would be of great help. As an editor to this book with my colleagues, we tried our best to write this book in a simple and easy memorizing layout with no mistakes. I will be very grateful to receive your feedback for better improvement in further editions. Finally, I hope this book will be useful and help you better understand and practice keratoconus and would like to thank my colleagues and students. without all of them this book would have never found its way to the world. Moataz M. Wessam

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