Purpose: The diagnosis of macular holes is difficult. Confocal laser tomographic analysis of the retina permits the precise measurements of the macular surface. The authors used this technique to study the macular area of patients with full-thickness macular holes. The purposes of these studies is to perform three-dimensional measurements of the macular holes and their rims and to search for a correlation between these parameters.
Methods: Thirty-one eyes with idiopathic full-thickness macular holes underwent scanning of their affected macular area using the Heidelberg retinal tomograph (HRT). The authors evaluated the following parameters: area of the hole and its elevated rim, the maximal depth of the hole, and the maximal elevation of the rim at 12, 3, 6, and 9 o'clock.
Results: The average hole area was 0.33 mm2, and the rim area average was 2.99 mm2. The average area of the rim was found to be 9.06 times larger than that of the hole (P < 0.001). The depth of the hole averaged 144 microns.
Conclusions: The area of the rim is usually bigger than that of the hole and in direct correlation to it. Also, the bigger the hole area, the greater its depth. The average height in each of the four quadrants (12, 3, 6, and 9 o'clock) correlates to the other quadrant heights (P < 0.001).