OCT 3-D surface topography of isolated human crystalline lenses.

Quantitative 3-D Optical Coherence Tomography was used to measure surface topography of 36 isolated human lenses, and to evaluate the relationship between anterior and posterior lens surface shape and their changes with age. All lens surfaces were fitted to 6th order Zernike polynomials. Astigmatism was the predominant surface aberration in anterior and posterior lens surfaces (accounting for ~55% and ~63% of the variance respectively), followed by spherical terms, coma, trefoil and tetrafoil. The amount of anterior and posterior surface astigmatism did not vary significantly with age. The relative angle between anterior and posterior surface astigmatism axes was on average 36.5 deg, tended to decrease with age, and was >45 deg in 36.1% lenses. The anterior surface RMS spherical term, RMS coma and 3rd order RMS decreased significantly with age. In general, there was a statistically significant correlation between the 3rd and 4th order terms of the anterior and posterior surfaces. Understanding the coordination of anterior and posterior lens surface geometries and their topographical changes with age sheds light into the role of the lens in the optical properties of the eye and the lens aging mechanism.