highly significantp < 0.001
Moreover, there was a highly significant decrease in the MIN epithelial thickness (45.99 ± 6.52) μm among children in VKC group than in the control group (50.11 ± 1.91) μm ( p < 0.001) and more negative value (MIN–MAX) in VKC group (− 11.77 ± 9.38) indicating focal epithelial thinning compared to (− 5.8 ± 1.82) in control group ( p = 0.001).