The Measurements of Macular Thickness and Volume with SD-OCT in Normal Eyes

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: We investigated reproducibility and repeatability of average macular thickness and volume measurements in normal eyes with Cirrus HD OCT (optical coherence tomography). METHODS: Fifty normal eyes from twenty-five subjects without medical and ocular histories were included. Macular cube 512 x 128 combination scanning using the Cirrus HD OCT was performed for a total of three times on the same visit by an experienced technician. Then other two technicians performed one more macular scanning respectively. Within-results, the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) was calculated for each parameter studied to evaluate repeatability and reproducibility. The correlation between macular measurements and demographic variables (age, gender, and spherical equivalent) were also investigated. RESULTS: The ICCs for intraoperator reproducibility were 0.99 on the average macular thickness and 0.96 on the macular volume. And the ICCs for interoperator repeatability were found to be 0.98 and 0.96, respectively. The ICCs for measurements of nine regional retinal thickness also were higher than 0.90. The retinal thickness was correlated with age, gender and refractive error. However, neither age nor refractive error affected to reproducibility and repeatability. CONCLUSIONS: The retinal thickness and macular volume measurements using Cirrus HD OCT in healthy volunteers showed excellent reproducibility and repeatability. Therefore, Cirrus HD OCT has been recognized as an useful tool for diagnosis and mornitoring of variable maculopathies.