The Anterior Chamber Depth According to Age in Normal Urban Adult

Kim, Nam Soo; Choe, Young Joo; Hong, Young Jae

Abstract

The anterior chamber depth is important in diagnosis and treatment of glaucoma, thus the research of the anterior chamber depth would help the understanding of angle closure glaucoma. Then the estimation of anterior chamber depth might help the diagnosis of certain cases of glaucoma. It has been reported by other authors in Korea, but there were not enough subjects to see the correlation between age and the anterior chamber depth. The purpose of this study was to measure the variation of the anterior chamber depth in relation to the normal aging process. The anterior chamber depth was measured in 2,524 eyes of normal subjects aged 20 years or older who visited our hospital to receive a health examination. Measurements of the anterior chamber depth were carried out conviniently with the Haag-Streit pachometer. Intraocular pressures were measured with the Pulsair non-contact tonometer, and the refractive errors of each subject were divided into hyperopia, emmetropia, and myopia. These data were analyzed statistically by Student's t-test. Female subjects had a smaller measurement for anterior chamber depth than male. The average anterior chamber depth of the emmetropes was smaller than that of the my opes and larger than that of the hyperopes. It was found that the anterior chamber depth decreased with age(0.015mm/year). The anterior chamber depth seemed not to be correlated with the intraocular pressure.