TO STUDY THE RETINAL NERVE FIBER LAYER CHANGES IN PRIMARY OPEN ANGLE GLAUCOMA ON OPTICAL COHERENCE TOMOGRAPHY.

DR. RAKESH GOUD; DR. MAYURI JAGDALE; DR.(COL.) O.K. RADHAKRISHNAN

Volume : IX, Issue : XII, December - 2019

TO STUDY THE RETINAL NERVE FIBER LAYER CHANGES IN PRIMARY OPEN ANGLE GLAUCOMA ON OPTICAL COHERENCE TOMOGRAPHY.

Dr. Rakesh Goud, Dr. Mayuri Jagdale, Dr. Col. O. K. Radhakrishnan

Abstract :

BACKGROUND : Primary open angle glaucoma is one of the common causes of visual loss in our society. Though there are several evaluation techniques to diagnose these cases, early detection and assessment of the severity of the disease is of prime importance to manage patients of POAG at an early stage of progression. Most of the early changes that occur in POAG are not detected earlier, hence diagnostic tests such as Perimetry and OCT have proven to be most useful in identifying early damage in the eyes of POAG patients. METHODOLOGY : A total of 90 patients with established POAG were examined at Tertiary Care Hospital in Western Maharashtra, India on out–patient basis under a descriptive cross–sectional study. All these cases were assessed for symptoms and signs of POAG and further evaluated for severity of progression of the disease as mild, moderate or severe cases. After thorough testing, interpretations of automated perimetry and OCT were compared to find out which test had better sensitivity and specificity in their results. The changes in RNFL were observed and noted quadrant–wise, further categorizing them into stages of POAG as mild, moderate and severe. 10 normal patients were included in the study as control cases. RESULTS : Incidence of POAG in this study was more in males (60%) than females (40%). OCT showed higher sensitivity, specificity & area under curve in ROC than perimetry (97.22%, 95%, 0.998 vs. 92.78%, 90%, 0.942 respectively), which suggests that OCT is a more accurate diagnostic test for detection of glaucoma as compared to perimetry. CONCLUSION : This study elaborates the need for awareness regarding possible risk factors contributing to POAG and thereby initiating early detection and thereby early management of the disease. OCT seems to be an accurate, simple and high sensitivity test in early detection of POAG and progression of the disease.