Abstract
Purpose:
To evaluate the retinal layer involvement and morphology in patients with a reduced retinal thickness area at the posterior pole.
Methods:
This is a cross-sectional and retrospective study. Six hundred and 48 files were revised and only 67 patients were selected. The included patients had a reduced retinal thickness area at the posterior pole by using the Asymmetry Analysis Map in Heidelberg Spectralis (Heidelberg Engineering, Germany). Only one eye for patients was included in the study. Retinal thickness was measured in three different retinal areas: 1) the area involved by the pathology (IA), 2) the specular area in the opposite hemifield (SA), and 3) the corresponding IA in the contralateral eye (CIA). Retinal layer morphology was analyzed observing the Spectralis screen. When the distribution of the data was normal, t-test was used while when the distribution of the data was non-normal, Mann-Whitney test was used. A P value <0.05 was considered significant.
Results:
The thickness of the IA was 235.54 um +/- 39.95 (mean +/- standard deviation), while it was 269.84 +/- 36.16 um and 293.81 +/- 37.52 um for SA and CIA respectively. In all the optic neuropathy patients and in those with branch retinal artery occlusion, a reduction of the ganglion cell complex was observed, while in patients with central serous chorioretinopathy, post-PDT and chronic serous epitheliopathy, a reduction of the outer retinal layer was observed.
Conclusions:
Different retinal layers could be involved in the reduction of the retinal thickness: a reduction of the inner layers was related to disease in which ciliar or retinal arterial vessel flow was involved, while a reduction of the outer retinal layer was related to pathologies related to choroidal flow diseases.
Keywords: 550 imaging/image analysis: clinical •
689 retina: distal (photoreceptors, horizontal cells, bipolar cells) •
691 retina: proximal (bipolar, amacrine, and ganglion cells)