Objective:

To characterize higher order corneal aberrations in patients with myopic ametropías and healthy emmetropic volunteers.

Methods:

A descriptive, observational and cross-sectional study was carried out using a sample of 104 eyes of 104 adult patients with myopic ametropias and a control group of 104 eyes of 104 healthy emmetropic volunteers, who attended the refractive surgery office at Instituto Cubano de Oftalmología. Demographic and clinical variables were defined, as well as the mean square value of higher order for the quantification of corneal aberrations, providing the Pentacam HR aberrometric map.

Results:

There was a predominance of the female sex. The mean ages of emmetropes and patients with myopic ametropias were 27.85 ± 5.21 and 27.89 ± 5.14 years. The median spherical equivalent of patients with myopic ametropias was -3.25 D, sphere of -2.63 D and cylinder of -1.00 D, while 91 eyes (87.50 %) had compound myopic astigmatism. The mean square value of high order was similar in both groups (p > 0.05). Among the coefficients of higher order corneal aberrations there was statistical significance only in the horizontal pentafoil.

Conclusions:

Higher order corneal aberrations have a significant influence on retinal image quality; hence the importance of their study, due to the deterioration of visual quality that they may cause. It has been demonstrated that there are no differences in high order aberrations between emmetropes and patients with myopic ametropias, as long as there is no other corneal alteration.