MACULAR CHOROIDAL THICKNESS IN UNILATERAL COMMOTIO RETINAE

To investigate the choroidal thickness (CT) and choroidal area (CA) in patients with unilateral commotio retinae of the macula using spectral domain optical coherence tomography with enhanced-depth imaging.

This is a retrospective review of 16 eyes of 8 consecutive patients with unilateral macular commotio retinae within 7 days of blunt ocular trauma that underwent optical coherence tomography with enhanced-depth imaging seen at our institution. The contralateral, nontraumatized eye served as the control group. All patients underwent spectral domain optical coherence tomography imaging with enhanced-depth imaging protocol. Using the electronic caliper within the Zeiss optical coherence tomography review software, CT was measured from the outer portion of the retinal pigment epithelium band to the inner surface of the sclera. The central horizontal and vertical rasters were averaged to calculate the final CT measurement of each eye. The final CA reading of each eye was obtained by averaging the central 1,500 μm2 of subfoveal CA using the same rasters. The researchers compared the CT, CA, and best-corrected visual acuity in traumatized eyes with macular commotio with their fellow nontraumatized control eyes.

Traumatized eyes with macular commotio retinae had greater subfoveal CT and CA (P = 0.0027, P = 0.0279) compared with the normal fellow eye. An increase in CT and CA in the subfoveal area in the presence of commotio retinae was associated with worse visual acuity (P = 0.0180).

Subfoveal CT and CA were greater in eyes with commotio retinae when compared with normal fellow eyes. Increased CT and CA in macular commotio retinae were associated with decreased visual acuity.