Comparison of glaucoma-diagnostic ability between wide-field swept-source OCT retinal nerve fiber layer maps and spectral-domain OCT

Abstract

Purpose To compare the diagnostic ability of wide-field swept-source optical coherence tomography (SS-OCT) retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) maps with spectral-domain OCT (SD-OCT) maps for detection of preperimetric (PPG) and early glaucoma (EG).

Patients and methods One hundred and forty-six eyes, including 37 healthy eyes, 38 eyes with PPG, and 71 eyes with EG, were analyzed. The patients underwent both SD-OCT (Cirrus HD-OCT; Carl Zeiss Meditec, Dublin, CA, USA) and wide-field SS-OCT scanning (DRI-OCT-1 Atlantis; Topcon, Tokyo, Japan). By SD-OCT, circumpapillary RNFL and macular ganglion cell analyses were performed. SS-OCT provides a wide-field RNFL thickness map and a SuperPixel map, which are composed of an RNFL deviation map of the peripapillary area and a deviation map of the composition of the ganglion cell layer with the inner plexiform layer and RNFL [GC-IPL+RNFL] in the macular area. The ability to discriminate PPG and EG from healthy eyes was assessed according to sensitivity, specificity and area under the receiver operating characteristic curve for parameters and criteria provided by SD-OCT and wide-field SS-OCT scanning.

Results The wide-field RNFL thickness map obtained by SS-OCT showed the highest sensitivity to PPG and EG (92.1 and 97.2%, respectively) as compared with the other, SD-OCT criteria. The wide-field RNFL thickness map showed PPG-diagnostic performance comparable to the SD-OCT RNFL thickness and GC-IPL deviation maps (p = 0.453 and 0.180), and PPG-diagnostic performance superior to the SD-OCT RNFL deviation and GC-IPL thickness maps (p = 0.003 and 0.039). In EG, the wide-field RNFL thickness and SuperPixel maps showed diagnostic performance comparable to the SD-OCT thickness and deviation maps (p = 0.065 to 0.100), except for the GC-IPL thickness map (p = 0.004).

Conclusions The wide-field SS-OCT RNFL thickness maps showed a diagnostic ability for distinguishing PPG and EG from healthy eyes that was similar to that of SD-OCT. In the clinical setting, these maps can be effective for detection of early-glaucomatous changes.