Objective To determine the effect of age and conjunctivochalasis on conjunctival thickness.
Study design Community- and clinic-based cross-sectional study.
Methods 119 normal subjects aged 60 to 79 years from the community and 83 subjects with CCh graded I to II (39 males and 44 females) aged 60 to 79 years from the clinic were recruited. Cirrus HD-optical coherence tomography (OCT) 4000 was used to measure the thickness of the lower temporal conjunctiva 3 to 5 mmfrom the corneal limbus.
Results There was a significant difference in conjunctival thickness between normal subjects and CCh patients (p<0.0001). A significant difference in conjunctival thickness was also found between normal subjects aged 60 - 69 years and 70 - 79 years (p=0.0466); no age-dependent difference was found in CCh patients (p = 0.1001). There was a significant difference in conjunctival thickness between normal subjects and CCh patients aged 60 - 69 years (p=0.0152) as well as those aged 70 - 79 years (p=0.0120).
Conclusions  The conjunctiva thins due to aging and is significantly thinner in eyes with conjunctivochalasis.