PARAPAPILLARY CHORIORETINAL ATROPHY IN NORMAL AND GLAUCOMA EYES .1. MORPHOMETRIC DATA

  • 1 May 1989
    • journal article
    • research article
    • Vol. 30  (5) , 908-918
Abstract
Glaucomatous optic nerve damage is associated with alterations of the intra- and parapapillary optic disc area. We measured and compared the parapapillary region in 582 eyes of 321 patients suffering from chronic primary open-angle glaucoma and in 390 eyes of 231 normal subjects. Only one randomly assessed eye per patient and subject was taken for statistical analysis. Highly mopic eyes with a myopic refractive error of more than -8.00 diopters had been excluded. The parapapillary chorioretinal atrophy was divided into a peripheral zone "Alpha" with irregular hyper- and hypopigmentation, and a more central zone "Beta" characterized by whitish colour, visible large choroidal vessels and visible sclera. In the normal eyes both zones were significantly (P < 0.001) largest and most common in the temporal horizontal sector, followed by the inferior temporal sector, the superior temporal sector and finally the nasal sector. In the glaucoma group both zones were significantly larger (P < 0.0001; Mann-Whitney test) and more frequent than in normal eyes (0.40 .+-. 0.32 mm2 versus 0.65 .+-. 0.49 mm2for zone Alpha, 0.13 .+-. 0.42 mm2 verus 0.79 .+-. 1.17 mm2 for zone Beta). The differences were significant also for the earliest glaucoma stage of this study. They were most marked for the nasal parapapillary sector. Significant differences (P < 0.001) between the normal group and the earliest glaucoma stage were: zone Alpha larger than 0.20 mm2 or broader than 0.20 mm in the temporal horizontal sector, total area of zone Alpha larger than 0.30 mm2, occurrence of zone Alpha in the nasal sector, and occurrence of zone Beta anywhere.