Interocular agreement and differences of ocular growth in cataract patients

We performed this study to investigate the interocular agreement and differences in ocular growth in cataract patients. Ocular biometrics in both eyes of 715 cataract patients were measured by Lenstar LS-900 and retrospectively collected. We used axial length (AL) and the axial length to corneal curvature ratio (AL/CR) as indicators of ocular growth. The patients were divided into 3 groups: group 1 (AL ≤ 22 mm in either eye), group 2 (22 mm < AL < 25 mm in both eyes), and group 3 (AL ≥ 25 mm in either eye). The interocular agreement of AL and AL/CR was assessed by the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC), and the interocular differences were evaluated by the Wilcoxon signed rank test and 95% limit of agreement (LoA). The correlations between interocular AL and AL/CR differences (ΔAL and ΔAL/CR) with interocular differences of other biometrics including central corneal thickness (ΔCCT), anterior chamber depth (ΔACD), lens thickness (ΔLT), lens position (ΔLP), flat corneal curvature (ΔK1), steep corneal curvature (ΔK2), anterior corneal astigmatism (ΔACA), white-to-white corneal diameter (ΔWTW), pupil size (ΔPS), and angle kappa (ΔAK) were evaluated by Spearman’s correlation test and partial correlation test. We found that AL was significantly different between the right and left eyes in all subjects, females, and group 2 (all P < 0.05). The AL/CR ratio was not significantly different between the right and left eyes (all P > 0.05). Higher interocular agreement of AL and AL/CR was observed in males (ICC = 0.948 and 0.959) than in females (ICC = 0.872 and 0.910). Agreement of AL and AL/CR was higher in group 2 (ICC = 0.942 and 0.947) compared to that in group 1 (ICC = 0.166 and 0.782) and group 3 (ICC = 0.605 and 0.704). ΔAL was significantly correlated with ΔACD (r = 0.218), ΔLT (r = − 0.103), ΔLP (r = 0.166), and ΔK1 (r = − 0.112), and ΔAL/CR was significantly correlated with ΔACD (r = 0.097), ΔLP (r = 0.102), ΔK1 (r = − 0.535), and ΔK2 (r = − 0.481). In conclusion, interocular agreement of ocular growth varies in different sex and AL groups, and the interocular differences of ocular growth are associated with those of other ocular biometrics.