Effect of aging on ocular light scatter and higher order aberrations.

Purpose: To study the effect of aging on ocular light scatter and higher order aberrations in humans.

Methods: Seventy-six eyes of 76 normal subjects who had refractive errors but no ocular disease were studied. Their age ranged from 4 to 69 years (mean 34.8 +/- 5.8 yr). Both light scatter and total higher order aberrations were simultaneously and quantitatively measured by a Hartmann-Shack sensor for the central 4-mm-diameter pupil. Higher order aberrations were calculated from the Zernike polynomials up to the 4th order. The amount of light scatter was estimated by using the diameter of the point spread functions (PSFs) of the Hartmann images. A correction was made for the effect of the aberrations on the width of the images. Linear regression analysis was performed to investigate the effect of aging on light scatter and total higher order aberrations.

Results: A significant correlation was found between scatter and age (Spearman rank correlation coefficient, r = 0.501, P = .001). Also, the total higher order aberrations increased significantly with age (r = 0.323, P = .005). The total higher order aberration and scatter index were not statistically significantly correlated (r = 0.184, P = .112).

Conclusions: These results indicate that scatter was better correlated with age than higher order aberrations.