Ciliary muscle thickness profiles derived from optical coherence tomography images

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to provide an in-depth analysis of the ciliary muscle's (CM) morphological changes during accommodation by evaluating CM thickness (CMT) profiles. The CM of 15 near-emmetropic subjects (age 20-39) was imaged via optical coherence tomography (OCT) during far (0 D) and near vision (3 D). A custom-made Java-based program was used for semi-automatic CM segmentation and thickness measurements. CMT profiles were generated to determine regions of the largest shape changes. The results revealed on average a thinning within the first 0.25 mm and a thickening from 0.36 to 1.48 mm posterior to scleral spur when accommodating from 0 to 3 D. In contrast to previous analyses, this method offers pixel-wise reconstruction of CM shapes and quantification of accommodative change across the entire muscle boundary.