Abstract
Purpose:
To evaluate the retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) thickness amongst children < 16 years.
Methods:
The (RNFL) was assesed by Heidelberg Spectralis spectral-domaine optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) during this cross-sectional clincial study in October 2012. The included parameters were the eye side , age, sex, (RNFL) thickness and spherical equivalent.
Results:
121 eyes from 66 children were analyzed. 37 Female and 29 male with mean age of 9 ± 2.9 years were enrolled. The spherical equivalent was +1.1 ± 2.5 diopters. The mean thickness of (RNFL) in full circle (RNFL-FC) was 103 ± 8.9 µm on the right eyes and 103 ± 11.4 µm on the left. The maximum thickness was found in inferior (RNFL-I) followed by superior(RNFL-S), nasal (RNFL-N), temporal (RNFL-T) sector respectively. The (RNFL-FC) was positively correlated with the refractive errors of our population; we found an increased thickness of (RNFL-FC) of 1,30 µm for every 1 diopter in hypermetropic shift. The relation between (RNFL) and the age, sex and eye side was not statistically signficant (p=0.01).
Conclusions:
The spherical equivalent is statistically signficant and correlated positively to (RNFL-FC) thickness in children. There are not enough normative data exist about (RNFL) thicknesses in pediatrics to be used as a normal range. Further studies could be done to evaluate the relation between glaucomatous (RNFL) changes in different refractive status in the pediatric age group.
Keywords: 550 imaging/image analysis: clinical •
610 nerve fiber layer •
556 infant vision