Abstract
Purpose:
To investigate the relationship between the tessellated fundus index (TFI) and choroidal thickness (CT) by the objective method.
Methods:
A prospective observational cross-sectional study comprised 100 right eyes of 100 healthy young Japanese participants. All participants (mean age 25.8 ± 3.9) underwent comprehensive ophthalmologic examination, including axial length, color fundus photograph. The subfoveal choroidal thickness (SFCT) and the nasal choroidal thickness (NCT) being located 750 μm nasal from the fovea were measured using enhanced depth imaging of Spectralis OCT. Fundus color between the fovea and the optic disc was quantified on digital color fundus photographs as a surrogate of the degree of the tessellated fundus using Image J. The TFIs was calculated as the ratio of mean red-green-blue (RGB) intensity. We used following three formula; TFI1: (R-G)/R, TFI2: R/(R+G+B), TFI3: (R-G)/(R+G+B). The relationship between the TFIs and the choroidal thickness and the axial length was investigated using linear regression analysis.
Results:
The mean axial length was 25.3 ± 1.4 mm. The all TFIs were significantly associated with the SFCT or NCT (R=-0.20 to -0.24, p<0.05). The correlation coefficients between the TFI2 and SFCT or NCT were higher than the correlation coefficients between the TFI1 or TFI3 and SFCT or NCT. However, all the TFIs were not significantly associated with the axial length.
Conclusions:
The degree of tessellated fundus was increased as the choroidal thickness decreased in young healthy eyes.
Keywords: 605 myopia •
452 choroid •
550 imaging/image analysis: clinical