Retinal OCT and (mfERG) Related to Age, Sex, and the Use of Anti-inflammatory Medications

Overview

Retinal optical coherence tomography (OCT) is an established technology which enables a detailed cross-sectional visualization of the retinal micro-anatomy, and an objective measurement of its thickness in-vivo. Multifocal electroretinogram (MfERG) measures function of the central retina. Both technologies are relatively new and they provide complimentary to each other information on retinal anatomy and function. The aims of this study is to establish normal ranges for OCT and mfERG measurements related to age, gender and reproductive factors such as parity and the use of contraception in Norwegians; to assess the presumably healthy central retina with the use of anti-inflammatory medication with relation to age and sex ; to study the frequency and extent of retinal thickening and change in retinal function in patients with anterior uveitis not complicated with macular edema; to assess whether the presence of the HLA-B27 haplotype or uveitis recidive affects macular thickening/function in uveitis.

Normal optical coherence tomography (OCT) and Multifocal electroretinogram (MfERG) measurements may vary with race, age, sex, parity and the use of hormone therapy in health. It has therefore been recommended to gather normative data on the individual OCT/MfERG equipment in each laboratory. This is the reason why we gathered our local normative material on both machines. We also assessed our normative material on the OCT in relation to age, sex, parity and the use of contraception for future matching with patients. It has been hypothesized that para-inflammation states are involved in retinal aging in health. We assume that the age-related changes we observed in our normative OCT material are related to low-grade chronic inflammation in the retina. We therefore assessed the effect of to commercially available anti-inflammatory eye drops- diclofenac and dexamethasone,which are often used in inflammation-related states in ophthalmology for their effect on macular thickness in health and with aging. Uveitis is a frank intraocular inflammation which may lead to macular edema. Macular edema is often transient in uveitis and its presence has been previously reported in severe or long-lasting uveitis. In some cases mecular edema may become chronic or refractory to treatment. However, whether uncomplicated anterior uveitis with no clinically evident macular edema leads to macular thickening detectable with the OCT, or whether monolateral uveitis may cause bilateral macular thickening is not known. We therefore assesed both eyes of patients with anterior uveitis for macular thickening with the OCT. To correlate macular anatomy with its function some subjects included in the OCT study were also examined with the mfERG. However, at present the MfERG result have not been analyzed.