PURPOSE

The primary purpose of the study was to compare the baseline choroidal thickness (CT) between affected eyes and fellow eyes of treatment-naive retinal vein occlusion (RVO) patients by spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT). The secondary purpose of the study was to find any association between presenting visual acuity and CT in the affected eyes of treatment-naive RVO patients.

METHODS

This was a comparative, cross-sectional study. A total of 68 eyes of 34 treatment-naive RVO patients in the age group of 40-60 years were prospectively included in the study. Individuals with refractive error beyond ±6 D and posterior segment pathology other than RVO were excluded. The baseline axial length and intraocular pressure of the affected and fellow eyes were taken into consideration so that these parameters do not have any effect on the CT. The CT at the subfoveal region, at a distance of 500 µm nasal and 500 µm temporal to the fovea, was measured on SD-OCT with enhanced depth imaging (EDI) mode.

RESULTS

The CT at all locations was significantly higher in the affected eyes of RVO patients (sub-foveal, 500 µm nasal, 500 µm temporal, and mean CT: 326.1 ± 80.0 µm, 325.4 ± 99.7 µm, 328.1 ± 100.8 µm, and 326.5 ± 87.8 µm, respectively) compared to the fellow eyes (sub-foveal, 500 µm nasal, 500 µm temporal, and mean CT: 264.2 ± 69.2 µm, 263.1 ± 69.5 µm, 255.2 ± 72.6 µm, and 260.8 ± 68.5 µm, respectively). The presenting visual acuity (in LogMAR) did not show a statistically significant correlation with CT (p = 0.404).

CONCLUSION

The study demonstrated that although CT was increased in RVO patients, it did not have any significant association with presenting visual acuity in the affected eyes of RVO patients.