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Study: Be aware of OCT discrepancies
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Mean foveal thickness measurements may be significantly thicker than previously reported values, depending on the software used to calculate the levels, according to a study.
Annie Chan, MD, and colleagues at the New England Eye Center analyzed data from 37 eyes of 37 patients who underwent optical coherence tomography (OCT) mapping. The researchers used the latest commercially available software, version 3.0, for the Stratus OCT (OCT3, Carl Zeiss Meditec). Retinal thicknesses were automatically calculated by the device’s software.
Mean foveal thickness on the OCT3 was 212 µm and mean central foveal thickness was 182 µm, the researchers said. Central foveal thickness was manually determined as 170 µm, about 12 µm less than the value automatically obtained from the OCT3 software. Mean foveal thickness measurements were 38 to 62 µm thicker than previously reported values, and mean central foveal thickness measurements were 20 to 49 µm thicker than previously published values, the researchers said. “This discrepancy should be considered when interpreting OCT scans,” the researchers said.
The study is published in Archives of Ophthalmology.