Assessing scleral thickness in patients with POAG and myopia by using OCT.

Background: The aim of the study is to utilize swept-source OCT for imaging the rear sclera near the ONH, calculating the thickness of the SL and lamina, and examining how these measurements correspond to various metrics.

Design: Cross-sectional design with a prospective approach.

Materials and methods: The study included 96 glaucoma patients and 39 control subjects, all with axial lengths greater than 23 mm. Swept-source OCT was used to visualize the subfoveal and ONH regions. Thicknesses of SL and lamina were then calculated from the "B-scan" visuals collected. In order to confirm the consistency of the calculation, "intraclass correlation coefficients" were computed from specific "B-scans". The study compared the thickness of the SL and lamina in subjects with NTG to those with POAG. A "Pearson correlation" was conducted to analyze the connections between the thickness of the SL and lamina with various ocular parameters.

Results: Swept-source OCT enabled the measurement of posterior SL thickness in 65.9% and laminar thickness in 89.8% of the subjects. The consistency of measurements taken by different observers and by the same observer varied from moderate to excellent. There was a notable variation among the NTG and POAG sets in terms of subfoveal SL thickness, with measurements of 680.84 ± 170.60 mm and 486.55 ± 125.21 mm, respectively. The connection among subfoveal SL thickness and axial-length was discovered to be negative in subjects with NTG, but this was not observed in subjects with POAG. The variation in connection among the 2 subject groups was statistically important (r [ L0.687, P < 0.002).

Conclusions: "Swept-source OCT" identified variations in posterior SL thickness between NTG and POAG eyes. The subfoveal scleral thickness showed a negative association with axial-length, particularly in eyes with normal-tension glaucoma.