Peripapillary nerve fiber layer thickness measurement reproducibility using optical coherence tomography

Area of Science:

• Ophthalmology
• Medical Imaging
• Neuroscience

Background:

• Retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) thickness is a key indicator of optic nerve health.
• Accurate RNFL measurements are crucial for diagnosing and monitoring glaucoma and other optic neuropathies.
• Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a widely used imaging technique for assessing RNFL thickness.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the reproducibility of peripapillary retinal nerve fiber layer thickness measurements.
• To assess the reliability of quadrantic and clock hour sectors of RNFL thickness.
• To determine if inexperienced operators can achieve acceptable measurement variability using OCT.

Main Methods:

• Healthy volunteers' normal eyes were imaged using OCT by two inexperienced operators.
• Six 360-degree circular scans (3.4 mm diameter) were acquired per session.
• Measurements were taken on three separate days within a four-week period, with variance and coefficient of variation (CV) calculated.

Main Results:

• High intraoperator reproducibility was observed for both operators (mean CV for total RNFL: 5.3% and 4.33%).
• Interoperator reproducibility was good, with no statistically significant differences in variance for most RNFL parameters (P = .42 to .99).
• The nasal RNFL sector showed the highest variability (mean CV: 10.42% and 7.83%).

Conclusions:

• OCT-based peripapillary RNFL thickness assessments demonstrate good intraoperator and interoperator reproducibility.
• Inexperienced operators can generate reliable RNFL thickness data with acceptable variance.
• OCT is a reproducible method for RNFL thickness assessment in clinical practice.