Abstract
The purpose of this work was to investigate the short-term reproducibility and variability of total retinal thickness in Heidelberg Spectralis SD-OCT. 18 eyes of 9 healthy volunteers (2M and 7F, age range 19–60 yrs.) were imaged with posterior pole SD-OCT scans on the same day in 3 consecutive sessions (“tests”). Total retinal thickness was evaluated automatically, but checked manually by the instrument software. The average difference between the three comparisons was analyzed.
The average variability of the total retinal thickness was less than 1 micron between any tests. These differences in thickness translated to variations of < 1% of the total retinal thickness. However, locally, the maximal difference between tests was on average 2.4–3.3% for the right eye and 1.8–1.9% for the left eye. These variations were much smaller compared to the variations of the RNFL (7.6–10.6%) or GCL (2.7–18.7%).
The ranking of short-term local variability in the macular region (best to worst) is: total retinal thickness, RNFL, GCL. This needs to be taken into account when planning and designing future clinical studies or for short-term follow-up of patients.
Meeting abstract presented at the 2016 OSA Fall Vision Meeting