Independent Factors of Choroidal Thickness

ABSTRACT

We read with interest the article by Agarwal et al. reporting that mean choroidal thickness was significantly higher in HIV patients, especially those with HIV microangiopathy, compared to healthy controls matched for age, ethnicity, and gender. We would like to highlight two important factors which may affect choroidal thickness assessment, namely diurnal variation and myopia, which should be taken into consideration. It is important to know that mean choroidal thickness is likely to be higher among HIV patients, especially those with HIV microangiopathy, compared to healthy subjects. However, it is also important to note and account for other factors, such as timing of image acquisition and refractive errors of subjects, as these could potentially affect the study results.

Keywords:

• Axial length
• choroidal thickness
• diurnal variation
• spectral-domain optical coherence tomography
• spherical equivalent

This article refers to:

Choroidal Thickness in Patients Diagnosed with Human Immunodeficiency Virus Infection: Results from Two Populations of Different Ethnicities

This article is referred to by:

Choroidal Thickness in Patients Diagnosed with Human Immunodeficiency Virus Infection: Results from Two Populations of Different Ethnicities: Response to Chay et al.’s Letter

Acknowledgments

Dr Chay does not receive funding. Dr Tan also receives conference support from Bayer (South East Asia) Pte. Ltd., Heidelberg Engineering (Heidelberg, Germany), and Novartis (Singapore).

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.

Additional information

Funding

Dr. Tan receives research funding from the National Medical Research Council Transition Award (Code: NMRC/TA/0039/2015) and the National Healthcare Group (Singapore) Clinician Scientist Career Scheme Grant (Code: CSCS/12005).