Assessment of relationship between retinal perfusion and retina thickness in healthy children and adolescents

PURPOSE: To determine the correlations between inner, mid, and outer retinal thickness (RT) and allied retinal and choroidal vascular densities (VD) at macula in normal healthy children and adolescents. METHODS: This cross-sectional study included a total of 108 eyes of 59 subjects. Optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA-Optovue) was used to measure the thickness of the inner-retina (IRT), mid-retina (MRT), and outer-retina (ORT) at foveal (central 1mm), parafoveal (1-3 mm), and perifoveal (3-6 mm) areas, as well as the corresponding VD of the superficial capillary plexus (SVD), deep capillary plexus (DVD), and choricapillaris (CVD). RESULTS: The study enrolled 108 normal eyes from 54 participants with a mean age of 10.9 years. Partial correlations showed that the nasal and inferior parafoveal and perifoveal subsegments IRT, MRT and ORT are more affected by all SVD, DVD, and CVD. Nasal parafoveal and perifoveal MRT and all three capillary layers have a constant negative correlation. ORT was not affected by all three layers except for CVD at fovea. The regression analysis revealed that SVD and CVD were significantly associated with foveal and parafoveal and perifoveal IRT. DVD and gender could significantly affect perifoveal IRT. However, only CVD was significantly affected foveal MRT. Based on regression analysis, only CVD was significantly associated with foveal and parafoveal ORT, but not with perifoveal ORT. CONCLUSION: The thickness of different retinal layers correlates with retinal and choroidal VD in different ways according to their zones.