Purpose:
To detect any size difference between Asian and Caucasian eyesby using optical coherence tomography (OCT) to measure corneaand anterior chamber.
Methods:
Normal Asian and Caucasian subjects were enrolled in the prospectivestudy. Both eyes were measured. Measurement of corneal diameter,corneal vault, anterior chamber (AC) width and AC depth weremade with computer calipers on wide-field anterior eye images(Figure 1) from a 1310 nm wavelength time-domain (TD) OCT prototype.Measurements from the vertical, horizontal and 2 oblique meridianswere averaged. Measurement of corneal power was made from IOL-Master optical biometer (Carl Zeiss Meditec, Inc.). Mean valuesof the 2 racial groups were compared using the generalized estimatingequation method to account for inter-eye correlation.
Results:
Thirty Asian and 24 Caucasian subjects were enrolled. Asiancorneas were significantly smaller than Caucasian corneas (Table1) in terms of AC width (P<0.001), diameter (P=0.008) andvault (P=0.0066). There was no difference in AC depth (P=0.11)and corneal power (P=0.37).
Conclusions:
The cornea and anterior chamber of the Asian eye are smallerthan that of the Caucasian eye. Optical coherence tomographyis able to provide rapid noncontact survey of anterior eye dimensions.
Keywords: clinical (human) or epidemiologic studies: biostatistics/epidemiology methodology • imaging/image analysis: clinical • anatomy