Abstract
Purpose :
Ocular higher-order aberrations (HOAs) increase with age. As for corneal HOAs, several studies reported a significant relationship between corneal HOAs and age, whereas others contradicted such relationship. Thus, the influence of age on corneal HOAs remains controversial. Additionally, relationships between corneal HOAs and refractive status have not been examined in detail. In this study, we investigated these relationships based on large population data.
Methods :
We examined 844 eyes of 422 subjects without corneal diseases. The subjects’ age was 47.6 ± 22.1 (mean ± standard deviation) years. All eyes were measured by anterior segment optical coherence tomography (CASIA SS1000, Tomey Co., Japan), and HOAs of the total cornea for a 6-mm pupil were calculated based on the height data. The obtained aberration data were analyzed in relation to age. Subjects were then classified into three groups according to spherical equivalent refractive errors such as myopia (<-0.5 D), emmetropia (-0.5 to 0.5 D), and hyperopia (>0.5 D), and the aberration data were compared between the groups. In addition, relationships between corneal HOAs and age were examined in each refractive group. Finally, multivariate analysis including all factors was performed.
Results :
There were significant correlations between corneal HOAs and age (r=0.285, p<0.01 for total HOAs (S3456), r=0.258, p<0.01 for coma-like aberration (S35), and r=0.199, p<0.01 for spherical-like aberration (S46)). When compared between three refractive groups, all aberration components were larger in the hyperopia group than in the myopia group. (all p<0.01). There were also significant correlations between total HOAs and age (r=0.386, p<0.01 for emmetropia, r=0.272, p<0.01 for hyperopia, and r=0.188, p<0.01 for myopia), and coma-like aberration and age (r=0.250, p<0.01 for emmetropia, r=0.229, p<0.01 for hyperopia, and r=0.218, p<0.01 for myopia). As for spherical-like aberration, there were significant correlations in hyperopia and emmetropia (r=0.253, p<0.01 for hyperopia and r=0.395, p<0.01 for emmetropia), but no correlation in myopia (p=0.283). In multivariate analysis, age was the most relevant factor in all aberrations.
Conclusions :
This study confirmed that corneal HOAs increase with age. Although we also found that hyperopic eyes had larger corneal HOAs than myopic eyes, the finding appeared to reflect the influence of age.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2018 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Honolulu, Hawaii, April 29 - May 3, 2018.