Comparison of Evaluation of Belin-Ambrosio indices and Rabinowitz criteria in refractive surgery candidates

Meticulous preoperative screening is one of the key factors that contribute to success in refractive surgery. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the Belin-Ambrosio and Rabinowitz indices as screening methods before refractive surgery to distinguish keratoconus suspects from normal patients. In this descriptive study, Pentacam data of 30 normal eyes (N) and 19 abnormal eyes with suspect keratoconus (KCS) were analyzed. Belin-Ambrosio and Rabinowitz indices were tested. Using SPSS Statistical Software (version17), an Independent T test was performed for statistical analysis. The mean age of patients was 25.51±3.97 years and the mean of myopia was -2.87±3.97 and the mean of astigmatism was -1.25±1.08 diopters. All tested variables had significant differences between N and KCS (Independent T-test, p< 0.001) except I-S value (p=0.22). The BAD-D and BAD-Dp had the greatest differences from Cutoff value. The Belin-Ambrosio indices provide additional information in diagnosis of suspect keratoconus compared to Rabinowitz criteria. In this study, the BAD-D and BAD-Dp were better approaches for detecting keratoconus.