Elsevier

Ophthalmology

Volume 117, Issue 8, August 2010, Pages 1585-1594
Ophthalmology

Original article
Normal Macular Thickness Measurements Using Optical Coherence Tomography in Healthy Eyes of Adult Chinese Persons: The Handan Eye Study

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ophtha.2009.12.036Get rights and content

Purpose

To describe macular thickness measured by optical coherence tomography (OCT) in healthy eyes of adult Chinese persons.

Design

Population-based cross-sectional study.

Participants

Chinese adults aged 30+ years who were residents of Handan, North China.

Methods

The Handan Eye Study is a population-based study of eye disease in Chinese persons. Eligible residents underwent a comprehensive ophthalmic examination including OCT (Stratus OCT, Carl Zeiss Meditec Inc., Jena, Germany). Fast macular thickness scans were performed over maculae within 6 mm in diameter, divided into 3 regions (central, inner, and outer, with a diameter of 1, 3, and 6 mm, respectively) and 9 quadrants (1 in the central region and 4 each in the inner and outer regions). Retinal thickness (means and standard deviations) was calculated by OCT mapping software, presented for foveal minimum, central macula (within 1 mm diameter), and inner and outer regions divided by 8 quadrants.

Main Outcome Measures

Macular thickness measured by OCT.

Results

Of the 6830 participants (90.4% response rate) examined, 2230 eyes of healthy subjects with high-quality OCT scans were selected (32.7% of participants; mean age, 46.4±9.9 years, 58.4% were women). The mean foveal minimum, central, inner, and outer macular thicknesses were 150.3 (18.1) μm, 176.4 (17.5) μm, 255.3 (14.9) μm, and 237.7 (12.4) μm, respectively (overall differences, P<0.001). The mean foveal volume was 0.139 (0.014) mm3, and the mean total macular volume was 6.761 (0.516) mm3. In the inner region, the nasal quadrant was thinner than the superior and inferior quadrants, and in the outer region, the nasal quadrant was the thickest (P<0.001). Age was positively correlated with foveal (beta coefficient = 3.582) and central macular (beta coefficient = 2.422) thicknesses. The foveal minimum, central, inner, and outer macular thicknesses were significantly greater in men than in women. Fasting plasma glucose was negatively correlated with central macular thickness (2.416 mm reduction per millimole/liter increase in glucose), and axial length was positively correlated with central macular thickness (2.138 mm increase per millimeter increase in axial length).

Conclusions

Normal macular thickness measurements using OCT in a large population-based sample of adult Chinese persons aged 30 to 85 years were generally thinner in the foveal and central macular areas than measurements reported in other populations. Age and axial length were positively correlated with macular thickness.

Financial Disclosure(s)

The authors have no proprietary or commercial interest in any materials discussed in this article.

Section snippets

Study Population

The Handan Eye Study was a population-based study of eye disorders in rural Chinese adults. Residents of Yongnian County, Handan, Hebei province, aged 30+ years, were randomly selected using a clustered sampling technique with probabilities proportionate to the population size in each cluster. Of the 458 villages in Yongnian County, 13 were randomly selected to achieve a target sample size of 5105. The sampling frame for selection was a list of the number of persons living in a village,

Results

Of the 7557 eligible subjects invited, 6830 took part in the study (90.4% response rate). Of the 5881 participants (86.1%) who underwent OCT, 2230 healthy subjects (37.9%) were selected. The numbers of subjects selected and included are shown in Figure 1. The mean age of participants included in the analyses was 46.4±9.9 years (30–85 years), and 1303 (58.4%) were women. Compared with those excluded, persons included were significantly younger and more likely to be female, and had lower fasting

Discussion

Macular thickness was measured by OCT in this population-based study of Chinese adults. Age, gender, axial length, and fasting plasma glucose were associated with macular thickness in healthy eyes.

Previous studies on the macular thickness and volume of healthy eyes using Stratus OCT were conducted largely in clinic-based populations (Table 5). Because discrepancies exist in measurements obtained from different OCT devices,36, 43 we compared our results with previously published data obtained

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    Manuscript no. 2009-865.

    Financial Disclosure(s): The author(s) have no proprietary or commercial interest in any materials discussed in this article.

    Supported by National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program), Grant 2007CB512201 from the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China, the Program of Health Policy for blindness prevention from Ministry of Health the People's Republic of China, and partially funded by the Key Technologies R&D Program No. 2006-10903 from the Bureau of Science and Technology of Handan City, Hebei Province, China. Additional support was received from Beijing Tongren Hospital and the key discipline fund of Bureau of Health, Handan City, Hebei Province, China.

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