Abstract
Purpose :
Performing vision screenings and refraction on small children often takes significant amounts of time and requires visiting clinics. The EyeProfiler (Ovitz Corp.) is a portable Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor used to perform objective refractions. In this study, we demonstrate the feasibility of the device to measure refractive errors in young children. A clinical study is performed on pediatric subjects to compare refraction measurements of the wavefront sensor with established objective refraction techniques.
Methods :
17 visually normal subjects (33 eyes) were measured with cycloplegia using the EyeProfiler, cycloplegic retinoscopy, and a commercial autorefractor (Canon RK-1). Subjects ranged in age from 3 to 11 years old (mean ± standard deviation = 6.6 ± 2.1) and were primarily of Asian descent. The wavefront sensor requires the subject to look at a red dot for about 6 seconds. The device automatically determines when it is aligned and records 5 consecutive wavefront images. Measurements were recorded with the other techniques and compared with the wavefront sensor.
Results :
Initial analysis of the wavefront images found that measurements made on the two youngest subjects (3 years old) were misaligned due to the subject not looking at the red target. These data were discarded for the following correlations. Subjects older than 4 years old were measured properly. Significant correlations were observed between the portable wavefront sensor and cycloplegic retinoscopy for both sphere (R = 0.98, p < 0.001) and cylinder (R = 0.84, p < 0.001). Significant correlations were also observed between the portable wavefront sensor and the commercial autorefractor for both sphere (R = 0.98, p < 0.001) and cylinder (R = 0.84, p < 0.001). The wavefront sensor cylinder measurement tended to differ significantly from the other techniques when their cylinder value was close to zero diopters, reducing the correlation.
Conclusions :
The portable wavefront sensor was demonstrated to produce accurate refraction measurements in young children based on clinical comparisons to existing objective refraction measurements. Measurements can be made rapidly without subjective and complicated input from the patient. This is valuable for examinations in office clinics and can be performed outside office settings. Additional measurements in children should be continued to ensure the statistical significance of the results.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2016 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Seattle, Wash., May 1-5, 2016.