Letter to editor: addressing inter-eye correlation in retinal image analysis for patients with bilateral data

We read with interest the article by Alapati et al., titled "Macular Volume Scan as a Marker of Angiographic Uveitic Retinal Vasculitis: A Retrospective Longitudinal Study". The exploration of optical coherence tomography (OCT) as a tool for detecting retinal vasculitis is highly valuable. While fluorescein angiography (FA) and indocyanine green angiography (ICGA) remain the gold standards, OCT is the most widely used and accessible tool in clinical practice. Identifying factors suggestive of retinal vasculitis on OCT scans could significantly enhance diagnostic approaches, which has been the focus of various studies exploring correlations between macular volume and angiographic parameters. Upon reviewing the methods and results, we noted that the potential inter-eye correlation might not have been accounted for in their statistical analysis. Considering that multiple eyes from the same patient were included, this correlation could impact both the evaluation by the graders and, more critically, the significance of the results, particularly in the correlation coefficients and longitudinal linear models used.