Quantitative Analysis of Inner, Middle, and Outer Retinal Thickness by Optical Coherence Tomography in Children and Adolescents

To describe the variance of inner, middle, and outer retinal layer thicknesses (IRT, MRT, and ORT) at the macular area in children and adolescents with normal eyes in different age groups.

This cross‑sectional study enrolled subjects aged 5–18 years with normal eyes. The macula was scanned by optical coherence tomography (6 mm × 6 mm AngioScan‑Optovue). Four age groups were defined (≤7, 7–10, 11–14, and ≥14 years). The influences of age and gender were analyzed.

One hundred and thirty‑nine eyes of 69 subjects with a mean age of 10.92 ± 3.51 years were registered. The mean whole macular thickness (MT) was 297.32 ± 11.05 in males and 303.197 ± 13.32 in females (P = 0.01, t‑test). The MT in each aging group was 301.47 ± 2.5, 295.53 ± 1.71, 300.81 ± 2.12, and 298.6 ± 1.87, subsequently (P = 0.17, analysis of variance test). Significant differences were found between the sexes at the perifoveal area and mainly in IRT. No correlation between eyes was noted. We observed that the RT fluctuates during growth and that gender has some influence on the evolution of RT. IRT and MRT changed reciprocally in all macular areas, whereas ORT expanded in all age groups of children and adolescents.

No subsegmental retinal thickness difference between eyes was observed in pediatric groups in this study, while gender had some influence on perifoveal IRT. Despite the fact that this study is not a longitudinal study, we can get some insight into the developmental changes in retinal thickness and its clinical applications in children and adolescents.