Purpose: To investigate choroidal thickness in healthy pregnant women during different trimesters using enhanced depth imaging optical coherence tomography (EDI-OCT).
Methods: This prospective study included 90 healthy pregnant women in their first, second, or third trimester (groups 1, 2, and 3, respectively) and 30 non-pregnant healthy women (group 4). The age range for all groups was 18-40 years. Spectral domain optical coherence tomography scans were obtained to estimate the average choroidal thickness. Using EDI-OCT, we measured choroidal thickness manually from the outer border of the retinal pigment epithelium to the inner scleral border at the subfovea, 3 mm temporal, and 3 mm nasal to the fovea. Differences among groups were analyzed by one-way ANOVA.
Results: We found a statistically significant difference between groups 2 and group 4 for subfoveal, temporal, and nasal mean choroidal thickness (p=0.007, p<0.001, p=0.026, respectively). The mean choroidal thickness for group 2 was 395 ± 80 μm, 338 ± 74 μm, and 233 ± 61 μm at the regions subfoveal, temporal, and nasal to the fovea, respectively. In comparison, the mean choroidal thickness for group 4 was 335 ± 86 μm, 274 ± 54 μm, and 200 ± 53 μm at the regions subfoveal, temporal, and nasal to the fovea, respectively. No statistically significant differences were found for choroidal thickness among groups 1-4 (p=0.214, p=0.177, p=0.094, respectively) and between groups 3-4 (p=0.105, p=0.261, p=0.695, respectively) for all measured points.
Conclusion: Our results suggest that choroidal thickening can occur at the regions subfoveal, temporal, and nasal to the fovea in the second trimester.