Influence of hyperopia and amblyopia on choroidal thickness in children

To compare subfoveal choroidal thicknesses (ChTs) of anisometropic hyperopic amblyopic, hyperopic nonamblyopic, and emmetropic control eyes and to investigate the associations between ChT and ambylopia, spherical equivalent (SE), and axial length in the pediatric population.

Forty-six hyperopic nonamblyopic (hyperopic group), 33 anisometropic hyperopic amblyopic (amblyopic group), and 42 emmetropic (emmetropic group) eyes were enrolled in this cross-sectional comparative study. Enhanced depth imaging spectral-domain optical coherence tomography was used for quantitative analysis of subfoveal ChT. ChT was quantified manually as the distance between the hyperreflective line corresponding to the retinal pigment epithelium and the chorioscleral interface at the subfoveal area.

The mean age was 10.6 ± 3.3 years (range 5-17) in the hyperopic group, 10.7 ± 3.3 years (range 5-17) in the amblyopic group, and 11.2 ± 3.3 years (range 5-17 years) in the emmetropic group (p = 0.627). The hyperopic and amblyopic groups had significantly thicker choroid compared to the emmetropic group (p1 = 0.005 and p2 = 0.006, respectively). However, there was no significant difference between the hyperopic and amblyopic groups concerning subfoveal ChT (p = 0.857). In addition, covariance analysis showed that although SE was independently associated with subfoveal ChT (p = 0.014), amblyopia had no significant independent effect on subfoveal ChT (p = 0.671). Further, subfoveal ChT had weak correlations with the axial length (r = -0.297, p = 0.001) and SE (r = 0.274, p = 0.002).

Hyperopia was associated with subfoveal ChT, whereas amblyopia had no independent significant effect on subfoveal ChT in our study population.