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OCT can be a practical screen for pediatric pseudotumor cerebri
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Children with pseudotumor cerebri show increased retinal nerve fiber layer thickness and increased macular thickness on optical coherence tomography compared with normal, control children, a prospective study found.
The results suggest that optical coherence tomography (OCT) could be a useful tool for evaluating these patients, the study authors noted.
Mays A. El-Dairi, MD, and colleagues at Duke University Medical Center compared the peripapillary retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) and macular thickness, imaged using OCT, between 11 children with clinical pseudotumor cerebri and 37 normal controls. They published their results in the December edition of Journal of American Association for Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus.
The fast RNFL map protocol showed increased RNFL thickness in the temporal and superior quadrants among children with pseudotumor cerebri. The RNFLs averaged 125.7 µm for children who had pseudotumor cerebri vs. 106.5 µm for controls (P < .0001), according to the study.
Fast macular thickness map protocol also demonstrated increased RNFL thickness in the nasal quadrant for the inner ring of children with pseudotumor cerebri. In addition, these children had significantly greater macular volumes, which averaged 7.21 mm3 vs. 6.97 mm3 for controls (P = .005), according to the study.