Evaluation of Choroidal Thickness in Amblyopia Using Enhanced Depth Imaging Optical Coherence Tomography.

Purpose: To evaluate the choroidal thickness (CT) in hyperopic anisometropic amblyopic eyes, fellow non-amblyopic eyes, and age-matched normal eyes, using spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT).

Materials And Methods: In total 53 subjects (17.8 ± 11.0 years, mean ± SD) with hyperopic anisometropic amblyopia (AE) and 53 age-matched controls (17.7 ± 11.0 years) were included in this prospective study. Each subject underwent a dilated eye examination, cycloplegic refraction and axial length (AL) measurement using Nidek AL-Scan optical biometer (Nidek CO, Aichi, Japan). The CT of subfoveal area and at a radius of 1 and 3 mm around the fovea was determined using the enhanced depth imaging program of a SD-OCT (Cirrus HD OCT, Carl-Zeiss Meditec, Dublin, CA). CT, AL and spherical equivalent refraction (SER) of the amblyopic eyes were compared to that of the fellow and control eyes.

Results: The mean subfoveal CT was 305.6 ± 26.0 µm in the amblyopic eyes, 282.6 ± 30.7 µm in the fellow eyes and 280.1 ± 8.8 in the control eyes. The subfoveal choroid in amblyopic eyes was significantly thicker than that of the fellow eyes and control eyes (p <  0.001). There was a significant negative correlation between the subfoveal CT and the AL in amblyopic (r = -0.298, p=0.03) eyes but not in the control and fellow eyes.

Conclusions: The subfoveal choroid of eyes with hyperopic AE is significantly thicker than that of the fellow eye and the age-matched controls. Hence, CT seems to be effected in AE.