Changes in wavefront error of the eye for different accommodation targets under the application of phenylephrine hydrochloride

Abstract

Pharmacological dilation of the eye to have a larger pupil diameter may allow a better understanding of the wavefront error changes with accommodation. This work aimed to investigate whether dilation of the pupil with Phenylephrine Hydrochloride (PHCl) application changes the accommodative response and the Zernike coefficient magnitude with accommodative demand when computed to a common pupil size. Sixteen right eyes of healthy young subjects were measured with the commercial Hartmann–Shack aberrometer IRX3 (Imagine Eyes, Orsay, France) 30 min after two drops of 1.0% PHCl were applied. The eye wavefronts for accommodative demands from 0 to 5 D were measured in natural conditions and after pupil dilatation. Statistically significant differences between both conditions were found for the Zernike coefficients C −1 3 , C 1 3 , C 0 4 and C 0 6 . Without the effect of PHCl, higher values were found for all higher-order Zernike coefficients (HOA). With increased accommodative response, an increase of C −1 3 and a decrease of C 1 3 was observed and the C 0 4 becomes more negative; the change from positive to negative is shown in the accommodative demand of 1.5 D. Conversely, C 0 6 increases with increasing accommodative demand. To conclude, the results demonstrated that the mydriatic effect of PHCl causes changes in the magnitude of HOA when accommodation is stimulated. The trends observed in the different Zernike coefficients were the same reported in previous studies.