Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate macular thickness by using optical coherence tomography (OCT) in autoimmune diseases where no ocular clinical findings were observed.

Methods: In our study, we evaluated both eyes of 34 patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), 31 patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and 21 healthy volunteers. Central macular thickness and nasal, temporal, superior and inferior macular thicknesses within 3 mm area of macula were measured in all patients using RTVue-100 Spectral-Domain OCT (Optovue Inc., Fremont, CA). The measurements were compared using one-way ANOVA test in SPSS 21.0 program. Comparisons were considered significant when p<0.05.

Results: There was no statistical significant difference in central macular thickness and nasal, temporal, superior and inferior macular thicknesses within 3 mm area of macula between RA and SLE patients, and age- and gender-matched healthy volunteers (central; p=0.583, nasal; p=0.220, temporal; p=0.303, superior; p=0.466, inferior; p=0.698).
Discussion: Our study demonstrates that macular thickness in RA and SLE patients without ocular findings do not differ with healthy individuals.