Retinal thickness losses at the posterior pole have been demonstrated in
patients with glaucoma. Visual
field changes in glaucoma often appear late in the disease process. Glaucomatous changes in the optic nerve
frequently precede visual field changes.
Inter-subject variability in the appearance of the optic nerve makes the
diagnosis of glaucoma in early cases challenging.
The Retinal Thickness Analyzer (Talia Technology, Ltd., Israel) was used
to obtain retinal thickness maps in 87 eyes (50 persons, mean age 56 y) either
suspected or diagnosed with glaucoma.
Humphrey visual field test was performed on every patient along with
stereo-photography of the optic nerve head. Two masked glaucoma specialists were asked to grade the
level of severity of glaucoma using each of the above three parameters. Retinal thickness losses strongly
correlated with optic nerve head changes and both correlated poorly with the
visual field. Conclusion: Retinal
thickness measurements allow earlier diagnosis of glaucoma and early
identification of level of severity of glaucoma than the conventional
techniques. Retinal thickness may
be a sensitive technique to monitor changes over time in glaucomatous eyes as
it provides another objective measure of neural loss besides the optic nerve
head.