Macular thickness measurements in healthy eyes using spectral optical coherence tomography

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to measure macular thickness in healthy eyes and find whether it changes with age. We examined 163 healthy eyes of 84 healthy volunteers. In order to measure their macular thickness the patients were examined using spectral-domain optical coherent tomography (SD-OCT - iVue, Optovue). They were allocated into 6 age groups. The mean central macular thickness (inner circle - fovea centralis) was 248.9 +/- 17.9 microm (mean +/- SD), and the mean total macular thickness (an area including 9 subfields as defined by ETDRS) was 286.2 +/- 13.9 microm (mean +/- SD). We found that it correlated negatively with age (r = - 0.18; p = 0.03; Pearson correlation). We found a statistically significant decrease of mean macular thickness as age increased.