Abstract
Purpose: :
To investigate high order aberrations (HOA) in Air Force Aviators.
Methods: :
1,422 eyes underwent wavefront analysis using the AMO Wavescan. 185 Aviator eyes were compared with 1,237 Non-aviator eyes in an age, gender, pupil size and refractive error matched groups. Overall HOA and each Zernike polynomial from the second to sixth order were calculated from multiple scans of each eye and results analyzed comparing the Aviator group to non-aviator group.
Results: :
Overall HOA root mean square did not differ significantly between Aviator and non-Aviator groups (p=0.347). Individual Zernike polynomials did reveal a statistically significant difference between the groups with an increased amount of vertical coma observed in aviators compared to controls (p=0.006) and an increased amount of secondary astigmatism observed in aviators as well (p=0.03).
Keywords: refractive surgery: optical quality • clinical (human) or epidemiologic studies: prevalence/incidence