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The thickness of the outer retina in the macula and circumpapillary area in patients with unilateral advanced glaucoma

  • Glaucoma
  • Published:
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Abstract

Purpose

To compare outer macular and retinal thickness in the circumpapillary area in unilateral advanced glaucomatous eyes to the normal or mild glaucomatous fellow eyes.

Methods

Seventy-eight eyes of 39 patients with unilateral advanced glaucoma (mean deviation (MD) worse than –12.00 dB based on visual field 24-2) were included in this cross-sectional study as the cases. The healthy or mild glaucomatous fellow eyes were enrolled as the control group. All eyes underwent optical coherence tomography of the macula and circumpapillary retina by Topcon DRI Triton (Topcon, Tokyo, Japan). Ganglion cell layer 2+ was considered as the inner retina. Total retinal thickness minus the thickness of the inner retina was considered as the outer retina. Comparison between groups was done by paired-sample sign test. The correlation between structural and functional parameters was evaluated by a partial correlation coefficient.

Results

Seventeen (43.6%), 15 (38.5%), and 7 (17.9%) patients had pseudoexfoliation, primary angle-closure, and primary open-angle glaucoma, respectively. The mean age was 62.69 ± 12.00 years. Thirty-three (84.6%) patients were male. The outer retinal thickness in the circumpapillary area was higher in temporal, superior, and inferior quadrants (p < 0.05). The outer macula in different parafoveal and perifoveal quadrants was also thicker (p < 0.05). Average outer parafoveal thickness in the case group had a significant negative correlation with MD (r = –0.339; p = 0.035).

Conclusion

Advanced glaucomatous eyes had a thicker outer retina in the macula and circumpapillary area. There was a significant negative correlation between outer perifoveal thickness and MD.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, [SMT], upon reasonable request.

Code availability

Not Applicable.

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Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Glaucoma Service, Farabi Eye Hospital, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Qazvin Square, Tehran, Iran

    Zakieh Vahedian, Ghasem Fakhraie, Mehrnoosh Ghasemi, Ali Azimi & Seyed Mehdi Tabatabaei

  2. Poostchi Ophthalmology Research Center, Department of Ophthalmology, School of Medicine, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran

    Ali Azimi

Authors
  1. Zakieh Vahedian
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  2. Ghasem Fakhraie
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  3. Mehrnoosh Ghasemi
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  4. Ali Azimi
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  5. Seyed Mehdi Tabatabaei
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Contributions

Zakieh Vahedian and Ghasem Fakhraie designed the study. Seyed Mehdi Tabatabaei and Mehrnoosh Ghasemi were active in data registration. Ali Azimi was the coordinator.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Seyed Mehdi Tabatabaei.

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Ethics approval

All procedures performed in this study that involves human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Also, the institutional review board of the Tehran University of Medical Sciences approved the study.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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There is no identifying information about participants available in the article, so this issue is not applicable.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Vahedian, Z., Fakhraie, G., Ghasemi, M. et al. The thickness of the outer retina in the macula and circumpapillary area in patients with unilateral advanced glaucoma. Graefes Arch Clin Exp Ophthalmol 260, 3935–3944 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00417-022-05756-w

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00417-022-05756-w

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