Objective: To measure corneal transparency before and after the surface ablation and establish a preliminary
database of corneal density and haze. Methods: Seventy-four patients (146 eyes) who underwent surface
ablation were measured with the slit lamp and the densitometry program of the Pentacam Scheimpflug imaging
system (0=no clouding, 100=tissue completely opaque). The corneal density before and after operation were
analyzed with the Wilcoxon’s Matched Pairs Test of the SPSS 13.0. Eyes of 3 months after operation were
categorized as postoperative clear corneas and postoperative with haze. According to the slit lamp, different
degrees of haze were correlated with corneal density to establish a preliminary corneal density database.Results: At 3 months after operation, there were 80 eyes with clear cornea (grade 0 haze) and 66 eyes with
haze which contained 49 eyes with grade I haze, 13 eyes with grade II haze, 2 eyes with grade III haze and 2
eyes with grade IV haze. Maximum density of preoperative corneas was 19.7±2.47, and it was increased to
30.3±7.2 postoperation (Z=?7.404, P<0.001). Maximum density of postoperative clear corneal (21.2±3.51)
and postoperative with haze (38.2±15.2) were both higher than preoperation (Z=?5.195, P=0.004 and Z=?4.783, P<0.001). And the haze correlated corneal density was grade I haze 29.4±2.58; grade II Haze
43.2±5.68; grade III haze 59.5±0.92; grade IV haze 89.5±14.9. Conclusion: Corneal density will increase with
haze. Maximum density of postoperative clear corneal was higher than preoperation which may be influenced
by the postoperative corneal inflammation or the rearrange of collagen ,and it need the further research. Besides
the slit lamp, we can use the corneal density to measure the corneal transparency after surface ablation. The
densitometry program of the Pentacam can provide a useful objective measure of postoperative and other mild
corneal haze.