Methodological concerns on retinal thickness evaluation by spectral domain optical coherence tomography in patients with major depressive disorder

- Major depression is being investigated in relation with neurodegenerative processes occurring in different sites, such as retinal degeneration.
- OCT has allowed us to improve our knowledge about retinal morpholology and anatomy, giving a thee-dimensional visualization of all the single retinal layers.
- Many confounding factors may influence retinal volume and thickness; retinal diurnal variation has been described in literature.
- When measuring retina by OCT an optical biometry examination should be performed in order to evaluate axial length.
- Antidepressant drugs exerts important ocular side effects and therefore should be considered as important confounding factors.