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Measured anterior chamber depth values differ from published values
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Measuring the anterior chamber depth before cataract surgery can yield better refractive outcomes than using manufacturers’ published anterior chamber depth values, a study suggests.
Mean anterior chamber depth values calculated by combining high-precision partial coherence interferometry and ray tracing are more precise than manufacturers’ values, the study authors assert.
Katharina Kriechbaum, MD and colleagues at the University of Vienna, Austria, measured the postoperative anterior chamber depth in 189 pseudophakic eyes using a prototype of a partial coherence interferometer. Anterior chamber depths were also calculated for six IOL groups using ray tracing based on the A-constant and the SRK formula. For each of the six IOL types, each measured anterior chamber depth was compared with a value calculated using the individual spherical equivalent of the postoperative refraction.
The calculated and measured anterior chamber depth measurements were close and no systematic differences were found. The values derived from this study, however, were significantly different from the manufacturers’ published anterior chamber depth values. The refraction-based data showed more scattered results, “probably the result of higher measurement errors with the autorefractometer than with [partial coherence interferometry],” the authors reported in the November issue of Journal of Cataract & Refractive Surgery.