Abstract
Purpose :
Swept-source optical coherence tomography (SSOCT) enables a clear measurement of subfoveal CT (choroidal thickness), and the relationship between CT and macular diseases has been reported. However, it is unclear whether or not CT affects glaucoma. The purpose of this present study is to investigate the relationship between CT and glaucoma, which has a decrease of central visual function (CVF) from the early stage, as it may result in the development of new methods to treat glaucoma.
Methods :
This study involved 92 patients (31 males and 61 females; mean age: 57.6±14.1 years) without macular diseases and long axial length (AL) (≥27mm) and no history of diabetes, hyperlipidemia, or hypertension treatment who underwent bilateral SSOCT and standard automated perimetry (SAP) at Oike-Ikeda Eye Clinic, Kyoto, Japan from January to February 2016. CVF was evaluated by central 4 points symbol numbers or MD (mean deviation) of 30-2 SAP, and CT was measured by SSOCT. The patients were divided into two groups based on the existence of laterality [i.e., CT difference between right and left eye; thick CT (CT-Thk) being 1.5-times thicker than thin CT (CT-Thn): 1) Laterality Group (n=13 patients) and 2) Non-Laterality Group (n=79 patients). Moreover, the CT of both eyes of each patient was compared and classified into two groups: 1) CT-Thk Group (i.e., thicker CT), and 2) CT-Thn Group (i.e., thinner CT). Next, AL, CT, and CVF were compared between the CT-Thk Group and CT-Thn Group in the 13 Laterality-Group patients and the total 92 patients (paired t-test). To examine the differences of each parameter between the Laterality-Group and Non-Laterality-Group patients, unpaired t-test was then performed. Next, the existence of laterality was used as an objective variable to perform multivariate analyses of patient age, gender, AL, blood pressure, and CVF in both the CT-Thk Group and CT-Thn Group.
Results :
The paired t-test findings revealed significance only in CT (p<0.001), while the un-paired t-test findings revealed significance in CT (p<0.001) and AL (p<0.05). Multivariate analyses findings revealed only systolic blood pressure as a significant factor (p<0.05).
Conclusions :
Our findings revealed that the factors that affect CT laterality are higher blood pressure and longer AL, and that CVF is not significant in POAG patients with CT laterality.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2018 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Honolulu, Hawaii, April 29 - May 3, 2018.