Daily and diurnal variation of corneal thickness in pigmented rabbit

Abstract

Central corneal thickness measurements were made on male pigmented rabbits using a custom-built digital Zeiss optical pachometer and double masked methods. Measurements were taken every hour for 24-h periods (while mimicking the animals' adapted light-dark cycle). During the dark cycle the corneal thickness increased by 10.33 ± 1.48% (SD) and 8.99 ± 2.10% (SD) for two 24-h cycles. In addition, measurements taken at 1000 each day showed that the daily fluctuation was ± 1% over the 30-day period.