Research Article To Evaluate the Effect of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease on Retinal and Choroidal Thicknesses Measured by Optical Coherence Tomography Sait Alim , 1 Helin Deniz Demir, 1 Ays ¸e Yilmaz, 2 Selim Demir, 1 and Alper G¨ unes ¸ 1 1 Department of Ophthalmology, Gaziosmanpas ¸a University Faculty of Medicine, Tokat, Turkey 2 Department of Pulmonary Diseases, Hitit University School of Medicine, Çorum, Turkey Correspondence should be addressed to Sait Alim; drsaitalim@gmail.com Received 2 March 2019; Revised 22 August 2019; Accepted 13 September 2019; Published 8 October 2019 Academic Editor: Shigeru Honda Copyright © 2019 Sait Alim et al. is is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Purpose. To evaluate the retinal and choroidal thicknesses in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease using optical coherence tomography. Methods.estudyincluded26patientswithchronicobstructivepulmonarydisease(COPD)and26age- matched healthy control groups. Detailed ocular examinations were performed on all participants. Cirrus EDI-OCT (enhanced depthimaging-opticalcoherencetomography)wasusedforchoroidalthicknessmeasurementswithframeenhancementsoftware. e subfoveal area was used for choroidal thickness measurements. Results. e patients with the chronic obstructive pulmonary disease had an average 239.13 ± 57.77 μm subfoveal choroidal thickness, and the control group had an average 285.02 ± 25 μm subfoveal choroidal thickness. e subfoveal choroidal thickness measurements revealed a statistically significant difference between patients and the control group (p < 0.05). ere were no statistically significant differences between patients and control group regarding mean macular thickness, central macular thickness, and GCIPL (ganglion cell-inner plexiform layer) thickness. Also, there was no statistically significant difference between patients and control group regarding mean, superior, nasal, inferior, and temporal RNFL (retinal nerve fiber layer) thicknesses. Conclusion. Chronic hypoxemia seems to cause decreased choroidal thickness in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. 1. Introduction Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is charac- terized by airflow limitation and persistent respiratory symptoms due to airway and/or alveolar abnormalities which are caused by exposure to gases and deleterious particles. e disease is preventable and treatable [1]. Cig- arette smoking is the primary cause of the disease [2]. e prevalenceoftheCOPDisestimatedtobenearly10%[3,4]. Spirometry is required for diagnosis. Forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1)/forced vital capacity (FVC) ≤0.7 and FEV1 ≥80 confirms the presence of airflow limi- tation that is not fully reversible which should be done after using a bronchodilator [5]. Although COPD is known primarily as lung disease, it can also produce significant systemic consequences because of smoking, increased systemic inflammation, tissue hypoxia-related sympathetic activity, procoagulant state, and arterial stiffness [3]. Retina and choroid is a complex microvascular system which can be affected by systemic diseases. Choroidal thickness in smoking and obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS)hasalreadybeenstudiedandshowedtobedecreased in the central area as a result of chronic hypoxemia, vascular dysregulation, decreased nitric oxide, increased sympathetic activity, and systemic inflammation [6]. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study which revealed statistically significant difference between patients and control group regarding subfoveal choroidal thickness (SCT) in COPD patients and spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT);anoninvasivetestwasusedtomeasurechoroidal thickness which has been believed to be the predictor of the healthy choroid [7, 8]. Hindawi Journal of Ophthalmology Volume 2019, Article ID 7463815, 5 pages https://doi.org/10.1155/2019/7463815