Abstract
Purpose:
It has been reported that hyperopic defocus leads to choroidal thinning, whereas myopic defocus leads to choroidal thickening in animal models. The purpose of this study was to compare the retinal and choroidal thickness by spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) before and after optical correction in eyes of children with anisohypermetropic amblyopia.
Methods:
Twenty-two children (6.2 ± 2.3 years) with anisohypermetropic amblyopia and ten age-matched controls (6.7± 1.9 years) were studied. The eyes with anisohypermetropic amblyopia were treated by spectacle wear. The retinal thickness was determined by SD-OCT and choroidal thickness was determined by the enhanced depth imaging (EDI) program of a SD-OCT instrument. The choroidal thickness was measured beneath the subfoveal area 1 and 3 mm diameter from the fovea in the superior, inferior, temporal, and nasal quadrants.
Results:
After one year, the best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) in eyes with anisohypermetropic amblyopia improved from 0.31±0.18 logMAR units to 0.03±0.12 logMAR units. The mean axial length was 21.54±0.87 mm before and 21.66±0.89 mm after the treatment (P>0.05). The mean foveal thickness of the retina was 226.2±22.8 µm before and 217.5±21.6 µm after the treatment (P>0.05). The mean subfoveal choroidal thickness was 351.2±50.7 µm before and 347.3±60.6 µm after the treatment (P>0.05). The retinal and choroidal thicknesses became thinner but the decrease was not significant. During the observation period, the mean subfoveal choroidal thickness in amblyopic eyes was always significantly thicker than that of control eyes (P<0.05). The choroid was the thickest at subfoveal area in amblyopic eyes whereas it was the thickest in the temporal region of the macular area in control eyes.
Conclusions:
Amblyopic eyes wearing plus corrective lenses for optical correction improved the visual acuity significantly but did not induce choroidal or retinal thinning. Our findings showed that the choroid thickness in amblyopic eyes was different from that of control eyes and did not alter after one year of optical correction.