Abstract
Purpose :
To evaluate spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) changes in choroid in patients with sickle cell disease (SCD) and correlate the results with visual acuity.
Methods :
This cross-sectional study included 98 eyes of 49 patients with sickle cell disease and 46 eyes of 23 healthy age and ethnicity matched controls. Data on visual acuity, severity of sickle cell retinopathy and choroidal thickness on EDI-OCT was analyzed.
Results :
The mean age was 38,08 ± 12,38 years in sickle cell disease patients and 35,09 ± 9,55 years in control patients, with no statistical difference between the groups (p=0,19). Also, there is no significant statistically difference in refractive error between the groups. Six eyes were excluded because examination was impossible (phthisis or prosthesis n=3, vitreous hemorrhage n=2 and retinal detachment n=1). The mean visual acuity was 0,98 in control group and 0,88 in sickle cell disease group, with statistically significant difference (p=0,004). The mean choroidal thickness was 307,31 ± 73,87 μm and 343,87 ± 66,89 μm in the sickle cell group and in the control group, respectively with statistically significant difference between them (p=0,005). We found no correlation between choroidal thickness and visual acuity in both groups.
Conclusions :
Our data suggest that in patients with sickle cell disease there is a decreased visual acuity and choroidal thickness compared to control group. There is no statistical correlation between the choroidal thinning and the loss of visual acuity.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2016 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Seattle, Wash., May 1-5, 2016.