Clinical assessment of retinal changes by spectral-domain OCT.

Purpose: To evaluate optical coherence tomography changes in patients with retinal thinning at the posterior pole. Methods: In this cross-sectional and retrospective study, 648 files were reviewed, and 67 patients were selected. Optical coherence tomography images that showed an area with a retinal thickness reduction at the macular region by using the Asymmetry Analysis Map in Heidelberg Spectralis were selected. The presence of hemisphere asymmetry in the same eye and asymmetry between the paired eyes were calculated and used for the analysis. Retinal thickness was measured in 3 different retinal areas (squares): (1) the area (square) involved by the pathology (IA), (2) the specular area (square) in the opposite hemifield (SA), and (3) the corresponding IA in the contralateral eye (CIA) (area used to recruit the patients). Retinal layer morphology was analyzed observing the Spectralis screen. Results: The thickness of the IA was 235.54 ± 39.95 μm (mean ± standard deviation), while it was 269.84 ± 36.16 μm and 293.81 ± 37.52 μm for SA and CIA, respectively. Conclusions: Different retinal layers could be involved in reduction of the retinal thickness: a reduction of the inner layers was related to disease in which ciliary or retinal arterial vessel flow was involved, while a reduction of the outer retinal layer was related to pathologies related to choroidal flow diseases.