Abstract
Purpose: :
To develop an easy-to-use heterochromatic flicker photometer (HFP) for precise macular pigment optical density (MPOD) and lens optical density (LOD) measurements, with automatic LOD compensation in computing MPOD.
Results: :
Comparing the new instrument and a traditional HFP, subjects were unanimous in their preference for the former. In particular, the 14° centrally fixated stimulus provided a much easier, Troxler fading-free task than the more traditional, eccentrically viewed small stimulus. The null point for both stimuli was very sharply defined. The subject's LEA had a significant impact on the computation of MPOD from eqn. 1, e.g. subjects aged 16 and 57 with the same log (IF/IP) of 0.350 had peak MPODs of 0.554 and 0.603, respectively.
Conclusions: :
We succeeded in our objective of a patient-friendly HFP (MAPCATsf™) for measuring MPOD and LOD, which may be associated with propensity for AMD and nuclear sclerosis respectively.
Keywords: macular pigment • carotenoids/carotenoid binding proteins • cataract