PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Kavya Devarajan AU - Ralene Sim AU - Jacqueline Chua AU - Chee Wai Wong AU - Saiko Matsumura AU - Hla M Htoon AU - Leopold Schmetterer AU - Seang Mei Saw AU - Marcus Ang TI - Optical coherence tomography angiography for the assessment of choroidal vasculature in high myopia AID - 10.1136/bjophthalmol-2019-314769 DP - 2019 Oct 04 TA - British Journal of Ophthalmology PG - bjophthalmol-2019-314769 4099 - http://bjo.bmj.com/content/early/2019/10/03/bjophthalmol-2019-314769.short 4100 - http://bjo.bmj.com/content/early/2019/10/03/bjophthalmol-2019-314769.full AB - Aims To assess specific layers of the choroid in highly myopic young adults and to examine their associations with levels of myopia.Methods We recruited 51 young myopes (n=91 eyes) from the Singapore Cohort of Risk Factors for Myopia cohort. We performed standardised optical coherence tomography (OCT) and OCT angiography imaging and developed a novel segmentation technique assessing choroidal layers’ thickness (overall choroidal thickness (CT), medium-vessel choroidal layer (MVCL) thickness, large-vessel choroidal layer (LVCL)) and vasculature (choroidal vessel density (%), choroidal branch area (CBA, %) and mean choroidal vessel width (MCVW, mm)).Results We found that eyes with extreme myopia (EM) had thinner vascular layers compared with high myopia (HM), that is, LVCL (36.0±1.5 vs 39.2±1.2 µm, p=0.002) and MVCL (185.5±5.7 vs 198.2±4.6 µm, p=0.014). Overall CT was thinnest in the nasal and inferior quadrants in EM (nasal: 157.1±9.6 vs 187.2±8.3 µm, p<0.001; superior: 236.6±11.1 vs 257.0±9.5 µm, p=0.02; temporal: 228.0±10.6 vs 254.3±8.8 µm, p=0.012; and inferior quadrant: 198.7±10.0 vs 239.8±8.3 µm, p=<0.001) when compared with HM. We also observed significantly more vessel branching in eyes with EM as compared with eyes with HM (CBA, 10.2%±0.7% vs 9.95%±0.8%, p=0.018).Conclusions The novel segmentation technique and introduced choroidal parameters may serve as new biomarkers to study disease conditions in myopia.