Objective Spherical Refractive Error Estimation Using Ocular Biometrics

Objective: To investigate the potential of clinical application spherical refractive error (SpRx) estimation using Ocular Biometrics (OB). Methods: 28 children aged from 6 to 14 years old with inter-ocular SpRx difference between 1 to 2 Dioptres (D) were recruited. Both eyes were measured with non-cycloplegia subjective refraction. OB was performed by the IOLMaster 700 (Carl Zeiss Meditec, Jena, Germany). For OB SpRx estimation, right eye Intraocular Lens Power (IOL), (A constant 118) was taken with right eye SpRx, the flattest central corneal curvature (FK) and Axial Length (AL) using SRK/T formula. Left eye OB SpRx was taken using identical calculation with right eye IOL, left eye FK and AL respectively. Results: No statistically inter-ocular differences were observed of the average FK (p=0.84) and average lens thickness (p=0.88), but not average AL (p<0.01). Average left eye SpRx by OB estimation and subjective refraction were determined as -2.86±1.02D and -2.82 ±1.16D (mean±SD) respectively. No significantly difference (p=0.84) and highly correlation (r=0.94. p<0.01) were found. Conclusion: Objective SpRx appears to be reliably estimated using OB. It likely provides a crucial SpRx reference for comparison with subjective refraction. OB SpRx may also play a vital role for monitoring the children myopic progression.