Macular pigment optical density and its relationship with refractive status and foveal thickness in Chinese school-aged children.
OBJECTIVE
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.
Department of Ophthalmology, First People's Hospital of Shanghai Affiliated to Shanghai Jiaotong University, Shanghai, China.
Wenjing
W
Zheng
Zhengwei
Z
Zhang
Kelimu
K
Jiang
Jianfeng
J
Zhu
Guixian
G
He
Bilian
B
Ke
D017677:Age Distribution; D002648:Child; D002681:China / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D005584:Fovea Centralis / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008266:Macula Lutea / Q000473:pathology*; D008297:Male; D009216:Myopia / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology; D055213:Retinal Pigment Epithelium / Q000473:pathology*; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D017678:Sex Distribution; D041623:Tomography, Optical Coherence / Q000379:methods*