Age-Related Changes in the Thickness of the Lamina Cribrosa Measured by Spectral Domain OCT

Dong Won Paik; Joo Hwa Lee; Jae Suk Kim

doi:10.3341/jkos.2013.54.8.1261

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Paik, Lee, and Kim: Age-Related Changes in the Thickness of the Lamina Cribrosa Measured by Spectral Domain OCT

Original Article

J Korean Ophthalmol Soc 2013;54(8):1261-1268.

Published online: 7 September 2013

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3341/jkos.2013.54.8.1261

Age-Related Changes in the Thickness of the Lamina Cribrosa Measured by Spectral Domain OCT

Dong Won Paik, MD, Joo Hwa Lee, MD, Jae Suk Kim, MD

Department of Ophthalmology, Sanggye Paik Hospital, Inje University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea

Address reprint requests to Jae Suk Kim, MD Department of Ophthalmology, Inje University Sanggye Paik Hospital #1342 Dongil-ro, Nowon-gu, Seoul 139-707, Korea Tel: 82-2-950-1096, Fax: 82-2-935-6904, E-mail: eyedoctor@freechal.com

Received 4 January 201321 March 2013 Accepted 5 June 2013

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Purpose

To measure the lamina cribrosa thickness (LCT) in vivo of healthy people and to determine any association be-tween the LCT and age or sex.

Methods

We evaluated 100 eyes of 100 healthy volunteers. Forty eyes were selected and divided into 2 specific age groups (38-49 and 78-89 years) and the differences were assessed with respect to age and sex. Each participant under-went a complete eye examination and the LCT was evaluated with spectral domain optical coherence tomography (OCT) using enhanced depth imaging (EDI) mode.

Results

Eighty-seven eyes were considered for the measurement and analysis of the LCT and 13 eyes were excluded be-cause of an unclear image for identifying the LCT. The mean age was 55.0 ± 19.5 years. The mean LCT in healthy volun-teers was 231.3 ± 41.6 μ m (range, 152.5 - 327.5 μ m) and a negative relationship was found between LCT and age (LCT = -1.614 × age + 320.191 μ m, 95% CI for slope -1.91 to -1.32, r² = 0.572, p < 0.001). Regarding differences related to sex, males had relatively thicker LCT than females, irrespective of age, although not statistically significant (p = 0.623).

Conclusions

The present study results showed a decrease in human LCT with increasing age. Therefore, a decreasing LCT with an increasing age could be considered a strong risk factor for the development of glaucoma. In addition, measuring the LCT may help to understand the disease prognosis.

Keywords: Age, Glaucoma, Lamina cribrosa thickness, Spectral domain OCT

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Figure 1.

Change in lamina cribrosa thickness (LCT, μ m) with age. Regression line : LCT = -1.614 × age + 320.191 μ m, 95% CI for slope -1.91 to -1.32, r²=0.572, p < 0.001. AvgLCT = average lamina cribrosa thickness.

Figure 2.

Differences with respect to sex and age in lamina cri-brosa thickness (LCT, μ m) in each group. Group 1: 38-49 years,10 men and 10 women, mean 240.40 (SD 24.30) μ m; Group 2:78-87 years, 10 men and 10 women, mean 191.65 (SD 25.31) μ m; unpaired t-test, p < 0.01.

Table 1.

Characteristics of the overall subjects

	Mean (n = 87)	Standard deviation	Range
Age (years)	55.0	19.5	18~87
Best-corrected visual acuity	0.89	0.16	0.5~1.0
Anterior chamber depth (mm)	4.73	0.53	4~6
Lamina cribrosa thickness (μ m)	231.3	41.6	152.5~327.5
Cup-to-disc ratio	0.45	0.07	0.3~0.5
Intraocular pressure (mm Hg)	14.9	3.27	8~21
Refractive error (spherical equivalent)	-1.05	2.18	-5.5~3.0
Axial length (mm)	23.31	0.75	21.69~25.08

Table 2.

Reproducibility of the lamina cribrosa thickness measurements

	Mean (n = 87)	Standard deviation	ICC
Intraobserver
Observer 1	231.41	41.976	0.992 (0.987-0.994)
Observer 2	231.28	41.408

ICC = intraclass correlation coefficient.

Table 3.

Multiple comparison results

(I^*) Group (years)	(J^†) Group (years)	Mean difference (I-J) (μ m)	Standard error (μ m)	p-value
10-29	30-49	45.84677	10.85231	0.000
	50-69	69.25000	11.46522	0.000
	70-89	95.19000	11.16542	0.000
30-49	10-29	-45.84677	10.85231	0.000
	50-69	23.40323	8.43378	0.034
	70-89	49.34323	8.02147	0.000
50-69	10-29	-69.25000	11.46522	0.000
	30-49	-23.40323	8.43378	0.034
	70-89	25.94000	8.83304	0.022
70-89	10-29	-95.19000	11.16542	0.000
	30-49	-49.34323	8.02147	0.000
	50-69	-25.94000	8.83304	0.022

^* Age subgroups;

^† Comparing age subgroups.

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