A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF RETINAL NERVE FIBER LAYER THICKNESS IN NORMAL AND GLAUCOMATOUS EYES USING SPECTRAL DOMAIN OPTICAL COHERENCE TOMOGRAPHY

BACKGROUND \nGlaucoma is the leading cause of irreversible blindness in the world. The peripapillary Retinal Nerve Fiber Layer (RNFL) thickness \nevaluation is a useful method to detect the early structural damage of glaucoma. The purpose of present study is to assess and \ncompare the Retinal Nerve Fiber Layer thickness in Primary Open Angle Glaucoma and control group using SD-OCT. \nMATERIALS AND METHODS \n70 eyes with POAG and 70 normal eyes were included in the study. All subjects underwent basic workup for glaucoma including \nstandard automated perimetry and optic nerve head evaluation using Cirrus SD-OCT. \nRESULTS \nAverage RNFL thickness is significantly reduced in diagnosed cases compared to normal subjects .In POAG cases it is 58.19 ± \n15.87µm and in normal subjects it is 91.91 ± 6.85µm (p<0.001). There is positive correlation between MD and average RNFL \nthickness and negative correlation between PSD and RNFL thickness. CD ratio has a negative correlation with RNFL thickness. \nCONCLUSION \nThe result indicates that SD-OCT helps largely to detect and measure decrease in RNFL thickness in diagnosed glaucoma cases. \nSo it is noteworthy in diagnosing glaucoma at an early stage consequently preventing further damage. \n