Retinal Thickness in Myopes with OCT

Purpose: To investigate whether retinal thickness varies with refractive error. Also secondary to see if there is any difference in retinal thickness between the right and left eye. Methods: The inclusion criteria for the study was subjects without any pathologies, age between 18-45 and refractive error of maximum +0.75 SER and the myopia had no limit, as well as no astigmatism higher then -1.00D. Subjects, which fitted the inclusion criteria for the study, was shown to the OCT room were retinal thickness measurements were acquired first on the right and then left eye. To get the same reading area, the same setup was used and the fixation point was always centered for each patient. After all subjects had undergone the same method the results were analyzed using t-test and regression analysis. Results: The analysis showed a difference between emmetropic eyes and myopic eyes in the peripheral retinal thickness, having the myopes being significantly thinner. The inter myopic analysis showed no difference in retinal thickness in any of the points. This could however be due to the smaller sample size. The comparison between right and left eye showed a good symmetry between the two eyes both in the emmetropic and the myopic group. Conclusions: From this study we can conclude that the myopic group has a thinner peripheral retinal thickness than the emmetropic group. Central retinal thickness is not significantly different but could be due to the smaller sample size. There is no difference in retinal thickness between right and left eye