Spectral-domain OCT enables precise evaluations of peripapillary choroidal thickness

Ophthalmology. 2011;118(10):2001-2007

Spectral-domain optical coherence tomography may accurately analyze peripapillary choroidal thickness, according to a study that showed manual segmentation to be reproducible between graders.

Data from 36 eyes of 36 patients observed at the New England Eye Center were evaluated in this retrospective, noncomparative case series. Cirrus spectral-domain OCT (Carl Zeiss Meditec) was used to obtain horizontal and vertical scans of each eye, and two graders individually measured choroidal thickness.

The inferior peripapillary choroid was significantly thinner than all other quadrants (P < .001), while none of the other quadrants were significantly different from one another.

Intraclass and Pearson's correlation coefficients were used to assess intergrader reproducibility. The intraclass correlation coefficient ranged from 0.62 to 0.93; Pearson's correlation coefficient ranged from 0.74 to 0.95 (P < .001).

Only one view of each quadrant was obtained. The authors suggested more scans around the peripapillary region to generate a two-dimensional map of the choroid and advocated that future OCT developments aim to increase scanning speed and incorporate longer wavelength imaging to achieve this goal.