Evaluation of choroidal thickness using spectral-domain optical coherence tomography in patients with migraine: a comparative study.

Purpose: To assess choroidal thickness in patients with migraine and compare them with healthy controls, using spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (OCT).

Methods: In this prospective case-control study, choroidal thicknesses of 20 newly diagnosed migraine patients and 20 age- and sex-matched healthy subjects were measured using a high-speed, high-resolution frequency domain (FD) OCT device (λ = 840 nm, 26.000 A-scans/s, 5 µm axial resolution). All patients underwent a complete ophthalmic examination before the measurements. OCT measurements were taken at the same time of day (9:00 AM), in order to minimize the effects of diurnal variation.

Results: There was a statistically significant difference in median choroidal thickness between the migraine patients (277.00 [interquartile range (IQR) 85.75] µm) and controls (301.00 [IQR 90.50] µm) (p = 0.012). There were significant differences at all measurement points (p<0.05 for all).

Conclusions: The decreased choroidal thickness of patients with migraine might be related to the vascular pathology of the disease. Further studies are needed to evaluate the etiopathologic relationship between choroidal thickness and migraine.