Its cause is not obvious and progressively corneal thinning and pointing are seen.

It is frequently seen in young people, but it may be seen in all ages.

An early diagnosis may be only established with corneal topography.

In topographies, areas where the cornea is thin and pointed are shown with warm colours (the thinnest and the most pointed places are shown with red), and areas where it is thick and flat are shown with cool colours (the thickest and the flattest places are shown with dark blue).

In topographies, the corneal lower quadrant is red as it is thin and pointed in patients with Keratoconus.

Keratoconus may be triggered by excessive rubbing of eyes at young ages.

A high degree of myopic astigmatism develops in Keratoconus. The vision increases with contact lenses, but not with glasses.

Keratoconus Treatment:

In the Cross-linking (CXL) method, a medicine containing Riboflavin (vitamin B2) is dropped into the eye and then the ultraviolet light therapy is applied on the cornea.

With the Cross-linking CXL treatment, the amount of collagen, the ground substance of the cornea, increases and corneal resistance increases.

Nowadays the CXL treatment is performed without opening the corneal epithelium (the membrane in front of the cornea) differently from the former CXL method and the period following both the application and the treatment is completely painless.

In case of late-phase keratoconus, the privileged treatment is changing the cornea (keratoplasty).

In the treatment, the intracorneal ring can be placed through the CXL.

Many other methods are also used in the Keratoconus treatment.

Among these are the attempts to perform cataract surgeries as if the patient had cataract and reduce the high degrees of myopia and astigmatism with a lens to be placed in the eye (surgery of removing transparent lenses and changing refractive lenses)

During a period, in treatment of patients with keratoconus, incisions in a certain number and at a certain depth were made in the retina with an operation called Radial Keratotomy (RK) and it was expected that the connective tissue developing during the repair of these incision places by the body would ensure the strengthening of the cornea.

Use of contact lenses is not for treating keratoconus, they only ensure that the patient can see better than they can do with glasses and they have no effects to stop progression of the diseases.