Retinal nerve fiber layer photography as an indicator of nerve fiber integrity in ocular hypertensive subjects

To evaluate the usefulness of retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) photography in the estimation of nerve fiber layer integrity in ocular hypertensive subjects; we examined 89 eyes of normal (59 eyes, 48 subjects), ocular hypertensive (26 eyes, 14 subjects), and glaucomatous (4 eyes, 2 subjects) patients. Preliminary studies included verification of the Statpac program for the Humphrey field analyzer, and establishing the method of nerve fiber layer photography sensitive enough to detect nerve fiber layer loss. The main study matched 14 ocular hypertensive subjects with 14 normal subjects. The subjects were matched by age(+/- 5 years), sex, and race. It was found that 2 of the 59 total normal eyes (3.4%) [ 2 of the 48 normal subjects (4.2%)]; 2 of the 15 matched normal eyes (13.3%) [2 of 14 matched normal subjects (14.3%)]; and 2 of 24 assessable ocular hypertensive eyes (8.3%) [2 of 13 subjects (15.4%)] showed suspected focal nerve fiber layer defects. None of our normal or ocular hypertensive subjects showed diffuse nerve fiber layer loss. We feel that retinal nerve fiber layer photography is a valuable indicator of nerve fiber layer integrity