Comparison of reliability of the eye optic disc cup and pallor areas in glaucoma diagnostics

The aim of this paper is to compare the glaucoma diagnostic reliability of two optic disc parameters: the relative cup area size determined by the Heidelberg retina tomography and the relative pallor area size determined by the proposed algorithm of the optic disc image analysis. Both parameters were measured for 240 normal healthy eyes and 240 glaucomatous eyes. The diagnostic reliability of studied parameters were compared using normalized distance d of their statistical distributions obtained for normal healthy and glaucomatous eyes and by comparison of area sizes under their ROC (Receiver Operating Characteristic) curves. The normalized distances were 2.19 or 1.73 and the area sizes under ROC curves were 0.95 or 0.89 for relative cup or pallor area size. Both considered relative parameters are significantly influenced by the glaucoma and can be used in its diagnostics. The designed pallor analysis is less diagnostic reliable than the analysis of the cup.