Abstract
Purpose:
To quantitatively and descriptively assess differences in optical coherence tomography (OCT) images between normal eyes and eyes with epiretinal membranes (ERMs), before and after ERM peeling surgery.
Methods:
Thirty-six idiopathic ERM eyes imaged pre- and post-operatively using spectral domain (SD)-OCT and 12 normal fellow eyes were studied. The thickness and reflectivity of the five raster scan foveal OCT images were assessed using a custom-built algorithm on Matlab™ software. Differences in pre- and post-operative best corrected visual acuity (BCVA, logMAR) were analyzed using a paired t-test. Differences in reflectivity and thickness between normal and pre- and post-operative ERM eyes were analyzed using a one-way ANOVA with post-hoc Newman-Keuls test. BCVA was compared between eyes with or without specific descriptive OCT changes (external limiting membrane (ELM) disruption, inner segment/outer segment (IS/OS) disruption, and cystoid spaces) using an independent t-test. A p-value less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant.
Results:
There was an improvement (p <0.05) in postoperative BCVA (mean: 0.38, SD: 0.21) compared to preoperative BCVA (mean: 0.53, SD: 0.31). Pre-operative ERM eyes had a lower foveal mean reflectance (MR) than post-operative ERM (p <0.05) and normal (p <0.05) eyes. Pre-operative ERM eyes had thicker foveal retinas than post-operative ERM eyes (p <0.001). Both pre- (p <0.001) and post-operative (p <0.001) ERM eyes had thicker foveal retinas than normal eyes. Eyes with ELM disruption (p <0.001), IS/OS disruption (p <0.01), and cystoid spaces (p <0.01) had lower BCVAs than eyes without those changes on OCT.
Conclusions:
SD-OCT demonstrates quantitative differences in reflectivity and retinal thickness in pre- and post-operative ERM and normal eyes. Eyes with ELM disruption, IS/OS disruption, and cystoid spaces on OCT had lower BCVAs than eyes without those changes.
Keywords: 688 retina •
550 imaging/image analysis: clinical •
552 imaging methods (CT, FA, ICG, MRI, OCT, RTA, SLO, ultrasound)