Prevalence of Keratoconus in Patients in an Ophthalmology Practice Center in Medellin, Colombia

Aim: To study the prevalence of keratoconus in an ophthalmology practice center in Medellin, Colombia.Materials and methods: A retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted at the CES clinic.A sample of 274 patients evaluated between 2017 and 2019 was used.Their clinical history was reviewed in search of the diagnosis of keratoconus, demographic variables, and others such as allergic conjunctivitis, atopy, and eye rubbing.A bivariate analysis was performed between the characteristics of the patients and keratoconus using the Chi-square and student's t-tests.Results: The prevalence of keratoconus was found to be 2.6% in the studied population, affecting 85.7% of women and 14.3% of men (p 0.097).The mean age of the population with keratoconus was 37.6 ± 7.9.The prevalence of atopy (37.5%) and allergic conjunctivitis (71.4%) was higher in patients with keratoconus (p <0.05). Conclusion:The prevalence of keratoconus presents an important variability according to the geographical area of residence of the population studied; the one found in this study is similar to that reported in centers in other areas of Colombia and Latin America.More studies are required to obtain epidemiological data comparable with the population prevalence of the rest of the world.