Astigmatic Defocus Leads to Short-Term Changes in Human Choroidal Thickness

PURPOSE. To examine the choroidal thickness (ChT) response to short-term with-the-rule (WTR) and against-the-rule (ATR) simple myopic astigmatic defocus, with the response to spherical myopic defocus and clear vision used as control conditions. METHODS. The left eye of 18 healthy adults aged 28 +/- 6 years was exposed to clear vision, +3 D spherical myopic defocus, +3 D x 180 WTR, or +3 D x 90 ATR astigmatic defocus for 60 minutes, over four randomly ordered visits, while their right eye was optimally corrected. The macular ChT was measured with optical coherence tomography along the vertical and horizontal meridians before and after 20, 40, and 60 minutes of defocus. RESULTS. After 60 minutes of defocus, ChT increased by +8 +/- 5 mu m (P < 0.001) with spherical myopic defocus, but varied with simple myopic astigmatic defocus, depending on the axis of astigmatism (P < 0.001), increasing by + 5 +/- 6 mu m (P = 0.037) with WTR and decreasing by -4 +/- 5 mu m (P = 0.011) with ATR astigmatic defocus. These changes were similar across the vertical and horizontal meridians (P = 0.22). The ChT changes were greater than the change during the clear vision control condition (-1 +/- 4 mu m) for WTR (+5 +/- 5 mu m, P = 0.002) but not ATR (-4 +/- 6 mu m, P = 0.09) astigmatic defocus. CONCLUSIONS. These results provide insights into the human ChT response to short-term astigmatic defocus and highlight a potential difference in the myopiagenic signal associated with the orientation of astigmatic blur.