Retinal thickness and age ‐ optical coherence tomography study

Abstract

Purpose To test the hypothesis is retinal thickness of the temporal disc margine ‐ just independent of age. Methods 60 eyes in 60 healthy volunteers were included in this study. Three OCT (STRATUS ‐ Zeiss) scans were performed, aligned vertically and placed at the temporal edge of the optic disc. Retinal Thickness (RT) and retinal nerve fiber layer thickness (RNFLT) were calculated, with variance and correlated with age. Results Both of paramethers tested ‐ RT and RNFLT decrease with age. The mean nerve fibre layer thickness was 112 (SD=21) ‐ in correlation with increasing age, and the mean retinal thickness (MRT) was 237 (SD=24) ‐ not in correlation with age increase . The mean coefficients of variation were 8,3% for RNFLT and 3,9%for total RT. Conclusion OCT testing is of high reproducibility for total retinal thickness and in nerve fibre layer thickness messurements. Both of paramethers decrease with age, but decrease of RNLFT, only, significantly correlates with increasing age. This put optic disc parameters (when a reference plane) in three dimensional tomography, for possible reassesment ‐ adjusting to age.