Optical Coherence Tomography Angiography in Patients with Amblyopia

Abstract Purpose: To determine the OCTA parameters including foveal avascular zone (FAZ) and vessel density (VD) in the amblyopic eyes compared with the fellow sound eyes and the eyes of the non- amblyopic subjects. Methods: In this case- control study, a total of 62 eyes from unilateral amblyopic children (n= 23) and the age- and sex- matched healthy children (n= 8) were included. The sound eye of the amblyopic children was considered as the internal control (n= 23) and the both eyes of the non- amblyopic children (n= 16) were considered as the external control. All participants underwent image recording with the optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) Results: The average age of 23 cases and 8 controls were 9.86±3.12 and 8.5±2.35 years, respectively. Twelve patients (52.2 %) in the case group and 8 subjects (50%) in the control group were female. Macular VD in different regions of superficial and deep capillary plexuses (SCP, DCP) were comparable amongst the case group and both the internal and the external control groups. The average FAZ area was 0.26±0.06 µm2 in amblyopic eyes that was significantly larger than in the fellow eyes (0.21±0.06 µm2; P=0.007) and was comparable to the healthy controls. Conclusion: Lack of significant difference of the macular vessel density between the amblyopic and non- amblyopic eyes of the both internal and external controls may be attributed to this fact that the changes of the retinal vascular density cannot be considered as the pathogenesis of amblyopia.