Grading of Iris Color with an Extended Photographic Reference Set

PURPOSE: To present a new iris pigmentation classification system based on comparison of iris pigmentation to a set of 24 standard eye photographs, with the aim of gaining on accuracy and on applicability for retinal straylight studies. METHODS: A reference set of 24 eye photographs was established by ranking the photographs from least (number 1) to most (number 24) iris pigmentation. Reproducibility was tested by grading a sample of 67 eye photographs with this reference set. RESULTS: The overall variation between observers was 1.46 on a scale of 0 to 25. CONCLUSION: The new method is promising to be more accurate than existing iris color classification systems in clinical situations where objective colorimetry-based systems are not available. The method may be useful to assess iris translucency and fundus reflectance as sources of variation in retinal straylight