Morphological aspects of normal optic disc and early signs of glaucomatous alterations

A group of 110 eyes with untreated ocular hypertension, 94 being non-exfoliative and 16 exfoliative and in addition 10 glaucomatous eyes were selected for this study. The optic nerve head was examined by ophthalmoscopy and a drawing was made of the estimated cupping. The disc pallor was measured from disc photographs in a double masked manner at the same time. The possibility to detect early glaucomatous damage by a single examination will be discussed and the two methods will be compared. This study indicates that an increasing vertical diameter of disc pallor might have a predictive value.