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Updated: May 22, 2026
Doppler Optical Coherence Tomography of Retinal Circulation
Published on: September 18, 2012
Optic disc imaging with spectral-domain optical coherence tomography: variability and agreement study with Heidelberg
Bingzhi Yang1, Cong Ye, Marco Yu
1Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, PR China.
Objective:
To evaluate the agreement of optic disc measurements obtained with the Cirrus high-density optical coherence tomography (HD-OCT) and the Heidelberg retina tomograph (HRT) and compare the intervisit, test-retest variability between the instruments.
Design:
Prospective, cross-sectional study.
Participants:
Two hundred seven subjects (109 glaucoma and 98 normal subjects).
Methods:
One eye from each individual was selected randomly for optic disc imaging by the Cirrus HD-OCT and the HRT. Areas of the optic disc and the cup, cup volume, vertical cup-to-disc ratio and cup-to-disc area ratio were compared between the instruments. The OCT measurements were corrected for ocular magnification using the Littman's formula. The measurement agreement was evaluated with the Bland-Altman plots. The intervisit test-retest variability was examined in 17 randomly selected glaucoma patients who underwent optic disc imaging weekly for 8 consecutive weeks. The intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) and the reproducibility coefficients of the optic disc parameters were computed.
Main Outcome Measures:
Measurement agreement, reproducibility coefficients, and ICCs of optic disc parameters.
Results:
The OCT measured smaller optic disc and rim areas and greater cup volume, vertical cup-to-disc ratio and cup-to-disc area ratio than the HRT did (all with P<0.001). There were proportional biases in the Bland-Altman plots between OCT and HRT optic disc measurements except for rim area and cup-to-disc area ratio. The 95% limits of agreement of rim area ranged between -0.28 and 0.88 mm(2) before, and between -0.22 and 0.92 mm(2) after correction for ocular magnification. Both OCT and HRT showed high test-retest reproducibility with ICCs ≥ 0.921. Although the reproducibility coefficient of OCT rim area (0.093 mm(2); 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.081-0.105 mm(2)) was significantly smaller than that of the HRT (0.186 mm(2); 95% CI, 0.163-0.210 mm(2); P = .018), there were no differences in the ICCs between the instruments.
Conclusions:
Optic disc assessment by spectral-domain OCT and confocal scanning laser ophthalmoscopy demonstrates poor agreement but similarly low test-retest variability. The source of their disagreement and its effects on the detection of progression require further study.
