Abstract
Purpose: :
Prior studies have reported varying correlation coefficients between central macular thickness (CMT) measured by optical coherence tomography (OCT) and visual acuity in patients with macular edema associated with diabetes mellitus, retinal vein occlusion, and retinitis pigmentosa. The purpose of this study is to investigate the association between OCT-measured CMT and visual acuity in patients with pseudophakic macular edema (Irvine-Gass syndrome; IGS) before and after anti-inflammatory drug treatment.
Methods: :
The study protocol was approved by the Institutional Review Boards at Penn State College of Medicine and Wayne State University. The medical and OCT records of patients with IGS treated with anti-inflammatory drug treatment were reviewed. The correlation coefficient between CMT as measured by Stratus 3 OCT (center point) and best-corrected Snellen visual acuity (BCVA) before and after anti-inflammatory drug treatment was calculated. Snellen visual acuities were converted to decimal equivalents for statistical analysis.
Results: :
OCT records were available for 33 patients before treatment and 34 patients after treatment. The correlation coefficient between CMT and BCVA was -0.23 before anti-inflammatory treatment (p=0.19) and -0.31 after treatment (p=0.07).
Conclusions: :
To our knowledge, this is the largest study to report the association between OCT-measured CMT and visual acuity in patients with macular edema associated with IGS. The correlation between these two variables was modest and not statistically significant; therefore, OCT-measured CMT cannot reliably substitute for visual acuity measurements in patients with macular edema associated with IGS. The correlation coefficients reported in this study are lower than those reported between OCT-measured CMT and visual acuity in patients with macular edema associated with diabetes mellitus, retinal vein occlusion and retinitis pigmentosa. Differences in the correlation coefficients may be due to differences in the underlying mechanism and structure of macular edema in the different disease processes.
Keywords: edema • retina • macula/fovea