Diagnostic capability of different morphological parameters for primary open-angle glaucoma in the Chinese population.

BACKGROUND

To assess the diagnostic capability of novel Bruch's membrane opening (BMO)-based disc parameters, the BMO-minimum rim width (BMO-MRW) and the BMO-minimum rim area (BMO-MRA) in the Chinese population and compare them to the retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) from optical coherence tomography (OCT) and the rim area (RA) from the Heidelberg retinal tomograph-III (HRT-III).

METHODS

In total, 200 eyes of 77 healthy and 123 primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG) subjects were included in this cross-sectional study. All participants underwent the visual field test and structural measurements by OCT and HRT-III. The areas under the receiver operating characteristic curves (AUCs) of different structural parameters were calculated to assess their diagnostic power and compared using the DeLong test.

RESULTS

In populations with different characteristics, the BMO-MRW and BMO-MRA had better diagnostic power than the RA. In discriminating between all POAG subjects and healthy controls and between early-stage patients and controls, the global BMO-MRW had comparable AUCs with the RNFL, but the BMO-MRA had lower AUCs than the RNFL. In healthy subjects with macrodiscs, both the global and sectoral BMO-MRW were thinner than those in healthy subjects with normal disc size. The AUCs of BMO-MRA, BMO-MRW and RNFL in subjects with macrodiscs were comparable. Additionally, in the myopic population, the BMO-MRA and BMO-MRW had comparable AUCs with the RNFL.

CONCLUSIONS

The BMO-MRW had comparable diagnostic power with the RNFL, and compared with BMO-MRW, the BMO-MRA might have advantages in certain populations, such as macrodiscs. All OCT-derived parameters exceeded the RA in diagnostic capability.