Correlation between optic nerve head structural parameters and glaucomatous visual field indices

Kyoichi Mizumoto,1 Masahiko Gosho,2 Masahiro Zako1 1Department of Ophthalmology, Aichi Medical University, Nagakute, Aichi, Japan; 2Advanced Medical Research Center, Aichi Medical University, Nagakute, Aichi, Japan Abstract: We examined associations between optic nerve head structural parameters and glaucomatous visual field indices. The study population included patients with glaucomatous optic neuropathy who were evaluated at Aichi Medical University, Nagakute, Aichi, Japan, from October 2010 to January 2011. A total of 57 eyes from 33 patients were assessed. We measured visual field using a Humphrey field analyzer, peripapillary retinal nerve fiber layer thickness (RNFL-T), and Bruch’s membrane opening-minimum rim width (BMO-MRW) using spectral domain optical coherence tomography, and rim area with referring three-dimensional photography. Spearman’s rank correlation coefficients were calculated between the threshold of visual sensitivity or total deviation of visual field and the following five optic nerve head structural parameters: RNFL-T length, BMO-MRW length, rim area, and calculated RNFL-T and BMO-MRW volumes (each length multiplied by rim area). The Akaike information criterion was calculated to determine which structural parameter was the best predictor of each visual field index. Threshold of visual sensitivity had correlation coefficients of 0.23 with global sector of RNFL-T, 0.32 with BMO-MRW, 0.14 with rim area, 0.21 with RNFL-T volume, and 0.26 with BMO-MRW volume. The correlation coefficients for each parameter with total deviation of visual field were 0.22, 0.33, 0.28, 0.36, and 0.37, respectively. The Akaike information criterion of BMO-MRW showed the smallest values in analyses of both threshold of visual sensitivity and total deviation. The present results show that RNFL-T volume and BMO-MRW volume were more strongly correlated with total deviation than BMO-MRW, but BMO-MRW appeared to be the best predictor of the two glaucomatous visual field indices. Keywords: Bruch’s membrane opening-minimum rim width, glaucoma, retinal nerve fiber layer thickness, rim area, spectral domain optical coherence tomography, visual fiel

Sonochemical approach for rapid growth of zinc oxide nanowalls

The sonochemical process drives chemical reactions with sound fields by creating extraordinarily high density of energy, pressure and temperatures. The process resulted in a number of unexpected chemical species and thought-provoking results in the recent past. In this paper, we present a new sonochemical approach to synthesize ZnO (zinc oxide) nanowalls (NWalls) on aluminum and alumina coated substrates at room ambient conditions. We achieved highly dense and uniform ZnO NWalls in areas that are coated with Al or Al2O3 (alumina). The synthesis process was shown not to occur on Si, SiO2, Cr, or Ag surfaces. A series of experiments on understanding the growth kinetics offers detailed insight into the growth dynamics over time. Photoluminescence (PL) measurements, UV Vis spectroscopy, and SEM-EDS results confirm NWalls composed of crystalline ZnO that are formed via Al assisted growth induced by phase transformations under extraordinary pressure, temperature, and chemical growth kinetics. The chemical growth method as reported here, is applicable to arbitrary substrates coated with an Al thin film. We demonstrate the applications of the as-formed NWalls in UV photoconductors and gas sensors