Relationships Between Haloes and Objective Visual Quality in Healthy Eyes

PURPOSE: To determine the normal values and relationships between haloes and objective optical quality in healthy eyes. METHODS: In this cross-sectional study, haloes, pupillary responses to light, and objective optical quality were measured with the optical quality analysis system (OQAS) and a vision monitor (MonCv3) in 138 right eyes of 138 healthy young men with mean spherical equivalent of 0.32 ± 0.47 D. RESULTS: The mean disc halo size was 77.17 ± 25.03 arcmin. The mean objective optical quality values were as follows: objective scatter index (OSI), 0.58 ± 0.33; Strehl ratio (SR), 0.21 ± 0.05; modulation transfer function cutoff, 36.27 ± 7.98 cpd; OQAS value (OV)100%, 1.21 ± 0.27; OV20%, 0.91 ± 0.23; and OV9%, 0.59 ± 0.16. Disc halo size correlated independently with OSI (P < 0.001) and minimum pupil size (P = 0.003) by forward stepwise regression analysis (disc halo size = 16.60 + 26.24 × OSI + 11.34 × minimum pupil size; R(2) value = 17.7%; F = 14.52; P < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Reference values for disc halo size and objective optical quality in healthy young subjects were established. Eyes with worse objective vision quality exhibited larger haloes. TRANSLATIONAL RELEVANCE: The study provided the knowledge and the relationships of OQAS and halo measurements from a well-defined group of healthy young subjects. Both measurements are useful in clinical practice to help quantify the vision quality and complement each other.