Abstract
Purpose :
To examine the association of retinal thickness as measured from spectral domain ocular coherence tomography (SD-OCT) images to contrast sensitivity in a group of older adults.
Methods :
Participants (n=1913) at the 2008-2010 BDES examination had SD-OCT images obtained. The macula images were segmented using the Iowa Reference Algorithms which identifies 10 retinal layers: nerve fiber (NFL), ganglion cell (GCL), inner plexiform (IPL), inner nuclear (INL), outer plexiform (OPL), outer nuclear (ONL), inner segment/outer segment (IS/OS), outer segment junction (OSJ), outer photo receptor (OPR), and retinal pigment epithelial (RPE). The mean thickness was averaged across the 9 subfields of the Early Treatment Diabetic Retinopathy Study grid for analyses of center, inner and outer rings. Data from images with artifacts and poor quality were excluded, as were eyes with late stage age-related macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, macular holes, cysts, epiretinal membrane or vitreomacular traction. Contrast sensitivity was measured using the Pelli-Robson chart; diminished contrast sensitivity was defined as triplet score <1.55. Each layer was analyzed separately with both eyes included using generalized estimating equation adjustment for correlation between eyes.
Results :
After exclusion, 1257, 1273 and 1084 eyes contributed to analyses in the center, inner and outer rings, respectively. Few associations were found in the center circle, but for nearly every layer in the inner and outer rings, eyes with thinner layers after adjusting for age and sex were more likely to have diminished contrast sensitivity. For every 1 standard deviation thicker NFL in the inner ring, the odds ratio (OR) was 0.86 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.75-0.98, p=0.009). Similar ORs were observed for GCL, IPL, INL, OPL and OPR in the inner ring and NFL, GCL, IPL, INL, OPL, ONL, OSJ and OPR in the outer ring. The OPR layer was significantly associated (p<0.001) in both the inner and outer rings (inner: OR=0.77 [95% CI 0.68-0.88]; outer: OR=0.73 [95% CI 0.62-0.85]).
Conclusions :
Significant cross-sectional associations were found between diminished contrast sensitivity and thinner retinal layers, especially outside the central circle. Further study is needed to determine the antecedent/consequent association and the mechanisms by which these associations occur.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2016 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Seattle, Wash., May 1-5, 2016.