Detecting early-stage glaucoma remains a challenge in current clinical practice. In this study we assessed the ability of the optical attenuation coefficient (AC) of the retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) to detect early-stage glaucoma, evaluated the effectiveness of the AC against the conventional RNFL thickness measurement, and introduced new depth-dependent diagnostic parameters. Our results showed statistically significant differences between ACs extracted from the RNFL of healthy eyes and early-stage glaucoma eyes, including glaucoma suspects and mild open-angle glaucoma. We also showed that depth-dependent AC analysis is an even more sensitive measure to monitor and detect early signs of glaucoma.
In glaucoma, degeneration occurs in the retinal ganglion cells, whose cell bodies reside in the retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL), leading to a decrease in the RNFL thickness. In clinical practice, optical coherence tomography (OCT) is used to measure the RNFL thickness for glaucoma diagnosis. Recent studies have shown that the degenerative process induces changes in optical properties of the RNFL, such as reflectivity. Because such properties can also be determined with OCT, we quantify this reduced scattering effect by determining spectroscopic attenuation coefficient (AC) in the RNFL with our proprietary autoConfoal algorithm, from two OCT B-scans of glaucomatous eyes.
Access to the requested content is limited to institutions that have purchased or subscribe to SPIE eBooks.
You are receiving this notice because your organization may not have SPIE eBooks access.*
*Shibboleth/Open Athens users─please
sign in
to access your institution's subscriptions.
To obtain this item, you may purchase the complete book in print or electronic format on
SPIE.org.
INSTITUTIONAL Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.
PERSONAL Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.