Macular Pigment Optical Density and Its Relationship with Refractive Status and Foveal Thickness in Chinese School-aged Children

Abstract

Purpose: To investigate macular pigment optical density (MPOD) and its relationship with refractive status and foveal thickness in Chinese school-aged children.

Methods: Ninety-four healthy Chinese children, 6 to 12 years old, were recruited to the study. MPOD was measured with a heterochromatic flicker photometer (HFP), and foveal thickness, including both minimum and central foveal thicknesses (MFT and CFT, respectively), were measured by optical coherence tomography (OCT) with fast macular map scan. A noncontact tonometer was used to measure intraocular pressure (IOP) followed by determination of the refraction using an autorefractor after cycloplegia. Information on body mass index (BMI) was obtained. The correlation between MPOD values and foveal thickness, spherical equivalent (SE) refraction, IOP, BMI, sex, and age was statistically analyzed using SAS 8.2 statistical software.

Results: The MPOD in examined school-aged children was 0.56 ± 0.25, without any significant difference between boys and girls (p = 0.12). MPOD showed no significant association with age, BMI, IOP, SE, MFT, or CFT. In the myopia group, however, there was an inverse relationship between MPOD and MFT (R =–0.66, p = 0.028) and a positive relationship between MPOD and CFT (R = 0.67, p = 0.025).

Conclusions: MPOD was inversely related to MFT and positively related to CFT in Chinese school-age children with low-to-moderate myopia. MPOD showed no significant association with age, BMI, IOP, SE or foveal thickness.

KEYWORDS::

• Macular pigment optical density (MPOD)
• Refractive error
• Foveal thickness
• Chinese children

Declaration of interest: This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Shanghai, China (Grant No.09ZR1425400) and the Foundation of Sight-restoring Centre of Shanghai, China (Grant No. 050802). The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.