Conjunctival UVAF photography is reliable and valid

Conjunctival ultraviolet autofluorescence (UVAF) photography is valid and reliable for detecting pre-clinical sunlight-induced UV damage, states a paper in the British Journal of Ophthalmology.

A team led by Professor David A Mackey, Lions Eye Institute, Centre for Ophthalmology and Visual Science, University of Western Australia, Australia, studied 599 people in the cross-sectional Norfolk Island Eye Study.

In total, the team used 196 UVAF photographs of 49 patients for intra-observer reliability assessment and 60 UVAF photographs of 15 people for inter-reliability assessment from the Norfolk Island Eye Study.

UV photography was used to measure conjunctival UVAF and UVAF area was calculated by computerized methods. A UV questionnaire was used to measure outdoor activity during summer and winter.

Both intra-observer and inter-observer concordance correlation coefficients of total UVAF surpassed 0.900. According to the questionnaire results, increased time spent outdoors strongly correlated with a rise in total UVAF in summer and winter.

It was found that the intra- and inter-observer reliability of conjunctival UVAF is significantly high. UVAF is strongly linked to the amount of time a ptient spends outdoors.