Objective:

To characterize low-order corneal aberrations in patients with myopic ametropia.

Methods:

A descriptive, observational and cross-sectional study was carried out with a sample of 104 eyes of 104 adult patients with myopic ametropia and a control group of 104 eyes of 104 emmetropic volunteers, who attended the Refractive Surgery Clinic of the Cuban Institute of Ophthalmology. Demographic and clinical variables were defined, and for the quantification of corneal aberrations, elevation-depression and average square value, provided by means of the Pentacam HR aberrometric map.

Results:

There was a predominance of female sex, the age range was between 18 and 39 years in both groups. The median spherical equivalent of myopic ametropia patients was -3.25 diopters, with uncorrected visual acuity of 0.10, sphere of -2.63 D and cylinder of -1.00 D, 91 eyes (87.50%) had compound myopic astigmatism. Elevation-depression values and low-order root average square value were higher in patients with myopic ametropes than emmetropes (p< 0.001). Vertical astigmatism, defocus and horizontal astigmatism showed no statistically significant difference between the two groups.

Conclusions:

Myopia with or without astigmatism should be studied and treated as a low-order aberration. The elevation-depression and average square values are higher in eyes with myopic ametropia than in emmetropic eyes.