Optical quality in low astigmatic eyes with or without cylindrical correction.

Purpose: To investigate whether optical quality could be improved by cylindrical correction for low astigmatic eyes with different amounts and axis orientations in patients with myopia up to - 3.00 diopters (D).

Methods: A cross-sectional study enrolling healthy young eyes with 0 to - 3.00 D myopia and - 0.50 to - 0.75 D myopic astigmatism was implemented. With a repeated-measures design, outcome measures were sequentially obtained for each subject under two correction modalities: spherocylindrical correction and spherical correction. Subjective refraction was used to determine the refractive prescriptions accordingly in the two correction modalities to obtain optimal subject-reported visual acuity. Primary outcomes were optical quality parameters including objective scatter index (OSI), modulation transfer function (MTF) cut-off, Strehl ratio (SR), and a simulated contrast visual acuity-optical quality analysis system (OQAS) values (OV) obtained by a double-pass system. Corrected distance visual acuity (CDVA) was measured as a secondary outcome. Outcome comparisons between the two correction modalities were performed by grouping in different amounts (- 0.50 D, - 0.75 D) and axes (with the rule, WTR; against the rule, ATR; oblique, OBL) of astigmatism.

Results: A total of 194 eyes of 194 subjects were evaluated. Significantly better CDVA were shown by spherocylindrical correction for all types of astigmatism except for - 0.50 D WTR astigmatism (P = 0.831). For eyes with - 0.50 D WTR astigmatism, better outcome was only shown in OSI with spherocylindrical correction (P = 0.019). For eyes with - 0.50 D ATR and OBL astigmatism, spherocylindrical correction demonstrated better outcomes in all parameters except for SR (P > 0.05). For eyes with - 0.75 D astigmatism, significantly better outcomes in all optical quality parameters were shown with spherocylindrical correction regardless of the axis (P < 0.05).

Conclusions: Eyes with ATR or OBL myopic astigmatism may benefit in optical quality and visual acuity by combining a cylindrical correction even with a low amount down to - 0.50 D. However, optical quality and visual acuity improvement are limited for WTR astigmatic eyes when the amount of astigmatism is less than - 0.75 D.