Age-Related Changes in Human Schlemm's Canal: An in Vivo Optical Coherence Tomography-Based Study

作者：Zhao, Yujin; Chen, Junyi; Yu, Xiaobo; Xu, Jianjiang; Sun, Xinghuai^*; Hong, Jiaxu^*

来源：Frontiers in Physiology, 2018, 9: 630.

DOI：10.3389/fphys.2018.00630

• Schlemm's canal
• healthy human
• anatomy
• spectral-domain optical coherence tomography
• age-related changes

Purpose: To investigate age-related changes in human Schlemm's canal (SC) using spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT).
Methods: A total of 125 normal eyes were imaged using SD-OCT nasally and temporally. The age-related variations of SC sagittal diameter and cross-sectional area (CSA) from four age groups [A (16-20 years), B (21-40 years), C (41-60 years), and D (61-80 years)] were analyzed with Spearman correlation.
Results: The positive detection rates of SC showed a significantly downward trend with age. The mean CSA was 13,296 +/- 1,897 mu m(2) nasally and 14,552 +/- 2,589 mu m(2 )temporally. The mean CSA was significantly larger in the temporal than in the nasal region region (P < 0.05). Nasal CSA values varied among the four age groups (P = 0.004).
Conclusion: Our study found for the first time that SC in vivo exhibits a morphological variant with age in healthy humans. Clinicians may need to consider this phenomenon when performing examinations targeting SC for glaucoma patients.

• 出版日期2018-6-5
• 单位复旦大学