A Clinical Approach to Establishing Normative Data in Pediatric OCT Angiography

PURPOSE: To evaluate vascular parameters using optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) in children and adolescents and to compare them with established normative data in adults, aiming to improve diagnostic accuracy and characterization of vascular pathologies in the pediatric population. A secondary objective was to assess the influence of ontogenesis on potential changes in vascular parameters. METHODS: The authors selected 150 healthy children aged 6 to 15 years. Each child underwent wide-field OCTA focusing on the macula and temporal periphery (OCT Spectralis; Heidelberg Engineering). Vascular density was semi-automatically calculated using ImageJ software (National Institutes of Health). The OCTAVA macro was used simultaneously within ImageJ, specifically designed for processing OCTA images, to calculate the vascular density and the size of the foveal avascular zone. RESULTS: The collected data were compared across different age categories for both the central and peripheral parts of the scans and found no relationship between the child's age and vascular density. Similarly, there was no direct correlation between the size of the foveal avascular zone and the individual's age. In contrast, the width of the capillaries in the choriocapillaris showed changes during adolescence. CONCLUSIONS: The creation of a normative database is the first step toward understanding the anatomical relationships and pathological changes in the retina and choroid in patients treated for internal diseases and those with hereditary and degenerative diseases.