Associations between choroidal thickness, axial length and spherical equivalent in a paediatric population
Asker Bulut1, Veysi Öner2, Şeyma Büyüktarakçı1
1Department of Ophthalmology, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan University Medical School Education and Research Hospital, Rize, Turkey.
Insights
Myopic children have thinner choroids compared to emmetropic children. Choroidal thickness (ChT) is negatively correlated with axial length and positively correlated with spherical equivalent (SE) in pediatric eyes.
Area of Science:
- Ophthalmology
- Pediatric Ophthalmology
- Retinal Imaging
Background:
- Myopia is a growing concern in pediatric populations.
- Understanding ocular biometry in myopia is crucial for management.
- Choroidal thickness (ChT) is a potential biomarker in refractive development.
Purpose of the Study:
- To compare choroidal thickness (ChT) between myopic and emmetropic children.
- To investigate associations between ChT, axial length, and spherical equivalent (SE) in a pediatric cohort.
Main Methods:
- Cross-sectional comparative study of 117 children (53 myopic, 64 emmetropic).
- Choroidal thickness (ChT) measured using spectral domain enhanced depth imaging optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT).
- Subfoveal and perifoveal ChT measurements (temporal and nasal to fovea) were obtained.
Main Results:
- Myopic eyes exhibited significantly thinner subfoveal and perifoveal choroids compared to emmetropic eyes (p < 0.05).
- Choroidal thickness (ChT) showed a negative correlation with axial length across all participants.
- Choroidal thickness (ChT) demonstrated a positive correlation with spherical equivalent (SE).
Conclusions:
- Pediatric myopia is associated with thinner choroidal thickness.
- Choroidal thickness (ChT) is a significant biometric parameter in children, correlating with axial length and refractive error.
- These findings contribute to understanding ocular development in childhood myopia.
Background:
The aim was to compare the choroidal thickness (ChT) of myopic children's eyes with that of emmetropes to determine whether there are associations between ChT, axial length and spherical equivalent (SE) in a paediatric population.
Methods:
A total of 117 eyes of 117 children including 53 myopic eyes (myopic group) and 64 emmetropic eyes (emmetropic group) were enrolled in this cross-sectional comparative study. ChT was analysed by using the HD 5 Line Raster scan protocol of spectral domain enhanced depth imaging optical coherence tomography. Subfoveal ChT was measured manually as the distance between the retinal pigment epithelium and the chorioscleral border and three additional measurements were carried out every 750 μm temporal (T1, T2 and T3) and nasal (N1, N2 and N3) to the fovea.
Results:
The mean age was 11.7 ± 2.7 years (range five to 17 years) in the myopic group and 10.9 ± 3.4 years (range 5 to 17 years) in the emmetropic group. There were no significant differences between the groups concerning age and sex (both p > 0.05). The myopic eyes had significantly thinner subfoveal, T1, T2, T3, N1, N2, N3 and average choroid than the emmetropic eyes (all p < 0.05). In addition, correlation analyses among all the study subjects showed that all subfoveal, T1, T2, T3, N1, N2, N3 and average ChT had negative correlations with axial length and positive correlations with the SE.
Conclusion:
The present study showed that the myopic children's eyes had significantly thinner subfoveal choroid than the emmetropic control eyes. Further, ChT was negatively correlated with axial length and positively correlated with SE in the population that included myopic and emmetropic children.
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