Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Article
  • Published:

The incidence and prevalence of recurrent corneal erosion syndrome in London, UK

Eye volume 37, pages 3213–3216 (2023)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Background

Recurrent corneal erosion syndrome (RCES) is caused by repeated episodes of corneal epithelial breakdown due to improper adherence of the corneal epithelium to the underlying basement membrane. The most common aetiologies are corneal dystrophy or previous superficial ocular trauma. The incidence and prevalence of the condition is currently unknown. This study aimed to determine the incidence and prevalence of RCES within the London population over a 5-year period in order to better inform clinicians and evaluate how this condition affects ophthalmic service provision.

Methods

A retrospective cohort study over a 5-year period reviewed 487,690 emergency room patient attendances at Moorfields Eye Hospital (MEH) London between 1 January 2015 and 31 December 2019. MEH caters for a local population comprising of around ten regional clinical commissioning groups (CCGs). The data for this study were collected using OpenEyesTM electronic medical records including demographics and comorbidities. The CCGs encompass 41% (3,689,000) of London’s total 8,980,000 inhabitants. Using these data the crude incidence and prevalence rates of disease were estimated with results reported per 100,000 population.

Results

Out of 330,684 patients, 3623 patients were given a new diagnosis of RCES by the emergency ophthalmology services, and from these, 1056 patients attended outpatient follow-up. The crude annual incidence of RCES was estimated at 25.4 per 100,000, with a crude prevalence rate of 0.96%. There was no statistical difference in annual incidence across the 5-year period.

Conclusions

The period prevalence of 0.96% shows that RCES is not uncommon. There was also a stable annual incidence over the 5-year period, showing no changing trend over the study period. However, identifying the true incidence and period prevalence is a challenging task, as minor cases may heal prior to examination by an ophthalmologist. It is highly likely that RCES is underdiagnosed and therefore underreported.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Similar content being viewed by others

Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

References

  1. Brown N, Bron A. Recurrent erosion of the cornea. Br J Ophthalmol. 1976;60:84–96.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  2. Reidy JJ, Paulus MP, Gona S. Recurrent erosions of the cornea: epidemiology and treatment. Cornea. 2000;19:767–71.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Heyworth P, Morlet N, Rayner S, Hykin P, Dart J. Natural history of recurrent erosion syndrome—a 4 year review of 117 patients. Br J Ophthalmol. 1998;82:26–8.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  4. Wood T. Recurrent erosion. Trans Am Ophthalmol Soc. 1984;82:850–98.

    CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  5. Bernauer W, De Cock R, Dart JK. Phototherapeutic keratectomy in recurrent corneal erosions refractory to other forms of treatment. Eye. 1996;10:561–4.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  6. Miller DD, Hasan SA, Simmons NL, Stewart MW. Recurrent corneal erosion: a comprehensive review. Clin Ophthalmol. 2019;13:325–35.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  7. Watson SL, Leung V. Interventions for recurrent corneal erosions. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2018;2018:1311.

    Google Scholar 

  8. Gupta N, Vashist P, Tandon R, Gupta SK, Dwivedi S, Mani K. Prevalence of corneal diseases in the rural Indian population: the Corneal Opacity Rural Epidemiological (CORE) study. Br J Ophthalmol. 2015;99:147–52.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  9. Tran TM, Duong H, Bonnet C, Kashanchi A, Buckshey A, Aldave AJ. Corneal blindness in Asia: a systematic review and meta-analysis to identify challenges and opportunities. Cornea. 2020;39:1196–205.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  10. Jan R-L, Tai MC, Ho CH, Chu CC, Wang JJ, Tseng SH, et al. Risk of recurrent corneal erosion in patients with diabetes mellitus in Taiwan: a population-based cohort study. BMJ Open. 2020;10:e035933.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  11. CQC, Moorfields Eye Hospital CQC Report. 2019.

  12. Williams N, Hardy BM, Tarrant S, Enninghorst N, Attia J, Oldmeadow C, et al. Changes in hip fracture incidence, mortality and length of stay over the last decade in an Australian major trauma centre. Arch Osteoporos. 2013;8:1–5.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Moffatt CJ, Franks PJ, Doherty DC, Martin R, Blewett R, Ross F. Prevalence of leg ulceration in a London population. QJM. 2004;97:431–7.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Moorfields Eye Hospital, 162 City Road, London, UK

    Shafi Balal, Peng Yong Sim, Mohammed Aamir Ismailjee, Rohan Hussain, Sajjad Ahmad & Anant Sharma

  2. UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, 11-43 Bath St, Greater London, UK

    Shafi Balal & Sajjad Ahmad

  3. Section of Academic Ophthalmology, School of Life Course Sciences, FoLSM, King’s College London, London, UK

    Abdus Samad Ansari

  4. The University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, UK

    Harun Juwale

Authors
  1. Shafi Balal
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Abdus Samad Ansari
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Peng Yong Sim
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Harun Juwale
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Mohammed Aamir Ismailjee
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Rohan Hussain
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. Sajjad Ahmad
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  8. Anant Sharma
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

SB was responsible for overall trial co-ordination and manuscript preparation. ASA was responsible for data analysis. PYS and MAI undertook data collection. RH, SA and AS undertook manuscript preparation.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Shafi Balal.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Balal, S., Ansari, A.S., Sim, P.Y. et al. The incidence and prevalence of recurrent corneal erosion syndrome in London, UK. Eye 37, 3213–3216 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41433-023-02490-3

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41433-023-02490-3

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links