Prevalence and Associations of Dome-Shape Macular Configuration – A Macular Curvature Study on UK Biobank data

Abstract

Purpose : To investigate the prevalence and potential associations of dome-shape macular configuration in general population.

Methods : A total of 65440 subjects with a mean age (± standard deviation, SD) of 57.3 ± 8.11 years with spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (OCT) data from a unique contemporary resource for the study of health and disease that recruited more than half a million people in the UK (UK Biobank) was analyzed in this study. A deep learning model was used to segment the RPE, and the macular curvature of the OCT scan was calculated by polynomial fit. The curvature was evaluated and associations with refractive error (spherical equivalent), corneal curvature, visual acuity, intraocular pressure, age, sex, ethnicity, fluid intelligence, birth weight, maternal smoking were examined.

Results : The overall macular curvature values followed a gaussian distribution with a mean (± SD) of 0.0021 ± 0.0014. There was a high inter-eye agreement. While all factors but ‘sex’ were significantly associated with the curvature in a multilinear analysis (adjusted R², 0.122), the highest correlation could be found for the factors refractive error and ethnicity. The prevalence of a macular dome-shape configuration was overall 4.78%, most common in Chinese subjects as well as hypermetropic eyes. An increasing frequency was found towards extreme refractive error (hypermetropia and myopia). Extreme dome-shape configuration (defined by the fourth quartile of concave curvature values), however, was more frequently found in myopic eyes; in particular in eyes with high (spherical equivalent, <-6 diopters) and extreme (spherical equivalent, <-9 diopters) myopia with a frequency of 3.76% and 6.49%, respectively. The odds ratio for this particular macular configuration in individuals of Chinese ethnicity for high and extreme myopia was 4.83 and 7.91, respectively.

Conclusions : Dome-shape macular configuration can be found in general population, more commonly in eyes with high refractive error. Further investigation of determinants of this macular configuration might provide new insights into normal eye development and maldevelopment like staphyloma.

This is a 2021 ARVO Annual Meeting abstract.