J Korean Ophthalmol Soc.  1998 Nov;39(11):2742-2753.

Peripapillary Atrophy: 1, Comparison of Normal Eyes and Eyes with Primary Open-Angle Glaucoma

• Uhm KB
• Lee SB
• Kim JT
• Hong C

Abstract

To confirm the value of the peripapillary atrophy(PPA) for the diagnosis and follow-up of patients with glaucoma, we performed magnification-corrected morphometry of photographs of 234 eyes of 141 patients with primary open-angle glaucoma and 139 eyes of 86 normal subjects. For the data analysis, only one eye of each patient was randomly selected. Both groups did not differ significantly in age. refractive error and disc area. According to the neuroretinal rim/disc area ratio, the glaucoma group was divided into four stages(1; more than 0.61, 2; 0.60~0.41, 3; 0.40~0.21, 4; less than 0.20). PPA differentiated into two different zones(alpha and beta). Zone alpha(0.76+/-0.55mm2 vs 0.47+/-0.32mm2) and zone beta(0.50+/-0.63mm2 vs 0.06+/-0.15mm2) and the total PPA(1.26+/-0.97mm2 vs 0.54+/-0.38mm2) were significantly larger(p=0.0001), and zone beta occurred more often(59.5% vs 17.4%, P=0.0001) in the glaucoma group than in the normal group. The area, angular extent and width of both zones enlarged significantly with increasing stage of glaucoma. The frequency of zone beta increased with advancing stage of glaucoma. These findings suggest that both zone alpha and beta increase continuously with advancing neural rim damage. Therefore, the PPA is useful for the diagnosis and progression of glaucomatous nerve damage.

Keyword

Peripapillary atrophy; Primary open-angle glaucoma; Zone alpha; Zone beta

MeSH Terms

Atrophy*
Diagnosis
Follow-Up Studies
Glaucoma
Glaucoma, Open-Angle*
Humans
Refractive Errors
Statistics as Topic