When it comes to spectral domain OCT (SD-OCT) imaging for glaucoma, the retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) is of particular interest, a new report shows. The study aimed to identify objective glaucoma-related structural features based on peripapillary (p) and macular (m) SD-OCT parameters and assess their discriminative ability between healthy and glaucoma patients. What they found was that, in particular, the peripapillary RNFL (pRNFL) parameters showed the greatest discriminative ability between cases.

The research included 260 eyes, of which 169 had a glaucoma diagnosis and 91 were used as healthy controls. They all were imaged using SD-OCT. The investigators than analyzed the discriminative ability between healthy and glaucomatous eyes of the first principal components (PCs) and compared that with conventional SD-OCT parameters (pRNFL, mRNFL, macular ganglion cell layer and macular inner plexiform layer).

They found that the first PC explained 58% of the total information contained in the ganglion cell layer and the pRNFL parameters and was the result of a general combination of almost all variables studied. Other PCs were driven mainly by pRNFL and mRNFL measurements.