When discriminating between perimetric glaucoma and healthy eyes, researchers recently looked at OCT imaging and found no difference when using circumpapillary retinal nerve fiber layer (cpRNFL) thickness measurements with and without Bruch’s membrane opening-minimum rim width (BMO-MRW) measurements.

The study evaluated the BMO-MRW and cpRNFL reports of 384 healthy eyes and 188 glaucoma eyes in isolation and in combination. The team then compared each method’s diagnostic performance of detecting perimetric glaucoma.

They noted that diagnostic performance measures for detecting perimetric glaucoma eyes were not significantly different when using either report or both reports together.

Either OCT imaging report of the neuroretinal tissue could be used effectively for detecting perimetric glaucoma, but further studies are needed to determine whether there are specific advantages of each method, or the combination of both, when evaluating eyes that have a greater degree of diagnostic uncertainty,” the study authors concluded in their paper.

Wu Z, Vianna JR, Reis ASC, et al. Qualitative evaluation of neuroretinal rim and retinal nerve fibre layer on optical coherence tomography to detect glaucomatous damage. Br J Ophthalmol. October 29, 2019. [Epub ahead of print].