title: Incidence of fovea plana in normal children.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To characterize the prevalence and features of subclinical foveal hypoplasia detected by optical coherence tomography (OCT) in children.
  
  
  METHODS
  Fast macular OCT scans were performed on normal children with normal vision for the development of a normative OCT-3 database; from this data, eyes with no discernable foveal depression were identified. When possible, the ocular imaging was repeated 3 years later using both OCT-3 and spectral domain OCT (SD-OCT). SD-OCT results were compared to age-matched controls.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Of the 286 normal children (mean age, 8.6 ± 3.1 years) scanned, 9 (mean age, 8 ± 2.9 years; 6 males) were found to have bilateral shallow foveal depression on OCT-3 imaging, including 8 of 154 white children (5.4%) and 1 child of mixed ethnicity (white/black). Children with shallow foveas (n = 9) had larger average foveal thickness (FT) compared to the cohort of controls (n = 277) with a defined fovea (FT = 231.4 ± 8.8 vs 188.8 ± 25.0, resp. [P < 0.0001]). Mean macular volume did not differ from that of controls. SD-OCT performed 3 years later on 5 of the 9 children with shallow foveal depression showed persistence of the inner macular layers over the foveal center, corresponding to grades 1 or 2 of foveal hypoplasia. The FT was increased compared to 5 age-matched controls with a defined fovea (FT = 294.5 ± 5.1 vs 219.75 ± 5.68 μm, resp. [P = 0.029]).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Up to 3% of children with clinically normal eyes had an anatomically underdeveloped foveal pit bilaterally on OCT.
authors.affiliation: Duke Eye Center, Durham, North Carolina; Department of Ophthalmology, La Paz University Hospital, IdiPaz, Madrid.
authors.forename: Susana
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Noval
authors.affiliation: Duke Eye Center, Durham, North Carolina.
authors.forename: Sharon F
authors.initials: SF
authors.lastname: Freedman
authors.affiliation: Duke Eye Center, Durham, North Carolina.
authors.forename: Sanjay
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Asrani
authors.affiliation: Duke Eye Center, Durham, North Carolina. Electronic address: mays.el-dairi@dm.duke.edu.
authors.forename: Mays A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: El-Dairi
mesh_terms: D001741:Black or African American; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D015785:Eye Diseases, Hereditary / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000208:ethnology / Q000503:physiopathology; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D005584:Fovea Centralis / Q000002:abnormalities* / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008297:Male; D009657:North Carolina / Q000453:epidemiology; D020417:Nystagmus, Congenital / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000208:ethnology / Q000503:physiopathology; D015995:Prevalence; D041623:Tomography, Optical Coherence / Q000379:methods; D014792:Visual Acuity / Q000502:physiology; D044465:White People