Development of a novel reference plane for the Heidelberg retina tomograph with optical coherence tomography...

To develop an ideal reference plane for the Heidelberg Retina Tomograph (HRT) with the assistance of optical coherence tomography (OCT) measurements of the mean retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) thickness.

The mean RNFL thickness was measured with OCT in eyes with early glaucoma (n = 50) and age-matched normal eyes (n = 40) at a circle as close as possible to the disc margin without touching it. Glaucomatous eyes were enrolled from chronic open-angle glaucoma patients with reproducible glaucomatous visual field defects with standard automated perimetry. One eye of each patient was randomly selected. A new reference plane was defined as located posteriorly from the mean height of the contour line by the amount of mean RNFL thickness measured with the OCT. Receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curves were generated to compare the ability of parameters obtained with the conventional and the new reference plane to differentiate glaucomatous eyes from normal eyes. The same analysis was performed for early glaucomatous eyes with myopic refractive errors (n = 25).

The areas under the ROC curves (AUCs) were greater for rim area, rim area/disc area, and rim volume with the new reference plane compared with those with the conventional reference plane, but they were not significantly different. When the same analysis was performed for myopic glaucomatous eyes, the AUCs for rim area, rim area/disc area, and rim volume with the new reference plane were greater than those with the conventional reference plane ( = 0.002, 0.010, and 0.034, respectively).

A novel reference plane for the HRT defined by OCT measurements may improve the ability of the HRT to detect early glaucoma, especially in eyes with tilted discs.