Evaluation of retinal and choroidal thickness in various age groups

Abstract

Aim: To evaluate retinal and choroidal thickness of healthy individuals in various age groups with optical coherence tomography (OCT) and enhanced depth imaging (EDI)-OCT technique . Material and methods: Totally 149 healthy patients aged between 0 and 69 years from seven different decades were included in this study. The retinal and choroidal thickness of the central area (fovea) and of the nasal and temporal points at a distance of 1500 μm from this central point were measured in the right eye with an OCT device (Heidelberg, Germany) in all subjects. The subjects with any ocular or systemic pathology and the subjects with a spherical refractive error more than 3 D or a cylindrical refractive error more than 1 D were excluded. The measurements of right eyes of the subjects were used in the statistical analysis and the P value less than 0.01 was considered to be significant. Results: The mean retinal thickness measurements were 326.61±16.89 µm at the temporally, 218.72±19.06 µm centrally and 351.32±17.74 µm nasally, with no statistically significant difference between the age groups (p˃0.01). The mean choroidal thickness measurements were 299.01±72.38 µm temporally, 332.34±78.08 µm centrally and 258.30±71.80 µm nasally. There were statistically significant differences in central and temporal choroidal thickness between age groups (p˂0.01). Conclusion: A statistically significant decrease was present in the choroidal thickness but not in the retinal thickness with age.