PURPOSE: To evaluate the relationship between high-order aberrations and refractive errors, and between high-order aberrations and age. METHODS: An analytic retrospective study of patients that underwent aberrometry examination was conducted. All subjects examined with LadarWave® aberrometer at the Hospital de Olhos do Paraná from April 2004 to April 2005 were included in this study. The major inclusion criterion was 20/20 or better - corrected or not - visual acuity; and the major exclusion criterion, the presence of previous eye surgery or disease. The following variables were analyzed: age, refraction, spherical equivalent, and high-order aberrations wich were: coma, spherical aberration, others, and high-order root mean square (RMS). All data were obtained by LadarWave® aberrometry examination, under cycloplegia, utilizing only 6.5 mm pupil results. High-order aberrations up to eight order Zernike's coefficients were evaluated. Patients were divided into 6 groups according to refraction error and into 3 groups according to age. RESULTS: Two hundred and one of 312 eyes were studied. The mean age was 33.9 ± 10.1, varying from 7 to 62 years of age. Among the refraction error groups hyperopic patients with less than -0.75 D astigmatism (Group 5) showed a higher amount of spherical aberration, and hyperopic patients with more than -0.75 D astigmatism (Group 6) showed a higher amount of other and high-order RMS aberrations. In the general comparison between the age groups, the 45 or older group (Group C) showed a higher amount of all the analyzed aberrations. CONCLUSION: a) There was a statistically significant positive relationship between hyperopia - with or without astigmatism - and spherical aberration and high-order RMS. b) There was a statistically significant positive relationship between age and all analyzed aberrations.
Refraction, ocular; Refractive errors; Refractive errors; Visual acuity; Age; Diagnostic techniques, ophthalmological; Retrospective studies
