Choroidal thickness in children with myopia and its changes after surgical strengthening of the sclera

Abstract

To study the choroidal thickness (CT) in children with myopia and hyperopia and its changes after sclera reinforcement surgeries addressing the progression of myopia. The study involved 133 patients: 78 children (average age 12.5±0.35 years) with mild hyperopia, low, moderate and high myopia and 55 children with moderate and high myopia who received low invasive scleroplasty (LSP, average age 12.31±0.49 years), or bandaging scleroplasty (BSP, average age 12.59±0.24 years) according to Snyder-Thompson technique and were examined prior to and after the procedure. All patients underwent standard ophthalmologic examination and had choroidal thickness manually measured with EDI-SD-OCT; 55 patients were examined before and 1 week after scleroplasty. A reduction of CT with refraction growth and axial elongation was found in 78 patients. Among the 55 patients, changes in CT were statistically significant: in the operated eyes, CT increased by 42.5±3.17 μm after LSP and by 62.1±1.06 μm after BSP. In fellow eyes, CT showed an increase of 26.1±1.79 μm after LSP and 33.7±0.55 μm after BSP. In the early period after sclera strengthening, CT significantly increased both in the operated and in the fellow eye. An increase of CT seems to stimulate the collagen biosynthetic activity of the scleral matrix and the collagen synthesis, and to boost the inhibitory effect that scleroplasty has on the myopia progression.