Choroidal thickness changes in connective tissue diseases

Aim: The aim of this study is to evaluate the choroidal thickness (CT) changes in connective tissue disease (CTD) using spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SD OCT) with enhanced depth imaging (EDI). Material and Methods: In this prospective clinical study, we included 34 subjects who were diagnosed as CTD in remission for at least 3 months, and age and gender matched 30 healthy controls. Central macular thickness (CMT), subfoveal CT, and CT at nasal (N) and temporal (T) distances of 500 μm (N500 and T500, respectively) and 1500 μm (N500 and T1500, respectively) from the central fovea were measured by EDI OCT. Results: The mean CMT of the patient group (219.2 μm) was thinner compared to the control group (225.5 μm), but the difference was not statistically significant (P = 0.2). At the same time, mean CT values were thinner at all measure points in the CTD subjects. The mean subfoveal CT, N500, N1500, T500 and T1500 were not significantly different in comparison to controls (all P > 0.05). Conclusion: Although our results did not reach statistical significance, we found that choroidal tissue was thinner in patients with CTD .