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Increased foveal thickness may be observed in preterm infants born before 28 weeks of gestational age
Retina. 2012;32(2):330-339.
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Preterm birth occurring before 28 weeks of gestational age may be linked to failure of the inner retinal layers to move away from the fovea, causing increased foveal thickness, a study found.
Twenty-six children with regressed retinopathy of prematurity and normal-appearing posterior poles and 56 age-matched controls were evaluated using frequency-domain optical coherence tomography 9-mm line scans across the fovea. A customized segmentation program enabled measurement of total retinal thickness and thickness of individual retinal layers.
Mean total retinal thickness for the preterm group was 287.7 ± 47.6 µm, while the control group had a thickness of 230.1 ± 18.2 µm. Before 28 weeks, foveal thickness decreased with gestational age at a rate of 14.3 µm per week; after this time point, thickness decreased at a rate of 2.73 µm per week.
All retinal layers were significantly thicker in the ROP group, but inner retinal layers contributed more substantially to differences in thickness between the two study groups. Notably, foveal thickness had no effect on visual acuity or refractive error.
According to the study authors, this analysis was the first to show that frequency-domain OCT images of the retina in children are quantifiable with segmentation methods.