Keratoconus is a progressive degenerative pathology of the cornea, which accounts for a large part of the eye’s total optical power.
Even today this pathology is largely unknown, resulting in progressive, incurable loss of sight even though methods exist to prevent its progression when detected in its early stages.
Keratoconus is bilateral and occurs most severely in young people. During the course of the pathology, the cornea gradually becomes more pronounced (curved), with an irregular deformation of the surface until it becomes cone-shaped due to the mechanical weakening of the corneal structure. This significantly impairs the patient’s sight, even to levels below 10% and corneal transplants may be the only solution to regain some of the sight lost. The pathology is often treated surgically with corneal ring implants or the cross-linking technique. The aim of such treatments is to improve the patient’s quality of life.
Current diagnosis of keratoconus is based on overt clinical signs. This means that the pathology can only be detected when it has a clinical manifestation; i.e. when the patient already has already lost a considerable amount of sight and the surface of the cornea is significantly deteriorated.
CORNEA_project holds the exclusive exploitation rights of the only known biomarkers that enable keratoconus to be detected early, even before the presence of clinical signs, with very high sensitivity and specificity rates.
These biomarkers, whose clinical utility is protected by a patent, are the only ones known to have a high degree of expression in patients even in cases far below what would be subclinical keratoconus, demonstrating sufficient sensitivity to diagnose keratoconus at the earliest stages, prior to the appearance of detectable clinical signs. This puts us well ahead of current diagnostic methods.
The correlation between the expression of these biomarkers and the onset, progression and severity of keratoconus makes them unique tools to diagnose and monitor the pathology and prevent problems associated with refractive surgery, such as post-LASIK ectasia.
To develop the first clinical test based on scientific evidence for the early diagnosis of keratoconus.
Fast, efficient and carried out on site.
Non-invasive
The only test capable of reducing the risk of post-LASIK ectasia due to keratoconus not being detected prior to surgery.
