Clinical Evaluation of a Rebound Tonometer in Patients Who Underwent Penetrating Keratoplasty

Purpose: To compare the measurements of the rebound tonometer (RT), Goldmann applanation tonometer (GAT) and non-contact tonometer (NCT) in patients who underwent penetrating keratoplasty (PKP), and to evaluate the reproducibility of the RT measurements. Methods: This study included 19 PKP eyes and 28 normal eyes. We compared the intraocular pressure (IOP) measurements of the GAT and NCT with the RT in both groups using Spearman's correlation analysis and the Wilcoxon signed-rank test. The IOP, as measured with an RT in each group, was assessed with respect to reproducibility using the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). Results: In normal eyes, there was no significant difference in the measurements obtained with the RT, GAT, and NCT (p > 0.050). In the patient group, the RT measurements were not significantly different from those of the GAT (p = 0.872), but they were significantly lower than those obtained with the NCT (p = 0.011). However, the RT measurements showed a relatively high correlation with those of the GAT and NCT (r = 0.770 and 0.879, respectively). The ICC of the RT was 0.986 for the PKP eye group and 0.961 for the normal eye group, both of which were highly reproducible. Conclusions: In PKP eyes, the measurements obtained with the RT showed a relatively high correlation with those of the GAT and NCT, and the repeatability of the RT measurements was high and similar to those for normal eyes. The RT can therefore be considered a useful method for measuring the IOP in PKP eyes.