In open angle glaucoma patients with diabetes mellitus longitudinal changes in central corneal thickness are associated with changes in optic nerve head morphology.

Abstract

Purpose : To examine the relationship between changes from baseline to 4 years in central corneal thickness (CCT) and changes in optic nerve head (ONH) morphology in open angle glaucoma (OAG) patients with diabetes mellitus (DM).

Methods : 72 patients with OAG (14 with DM, 58 without DM) were assessed for CCT by ultrasound pachymetry and for ONH morphology by Heidelberg retinal tomography 3 (HRT3) and optical coherence tomography (OCT) every 6 months for a 4-year period. Pearson correlations were used to test for associations between measurements, with p<0.05 considered statistically significant.

Results : In OAG patients with DM, changes in CCT were negatively and significantly associated with changes in OCT disk area, OCT rim area, and positively and significantly associated with changes in OCT cup/disk vertical ratio, HRT3 cup volume, HRT3 mean cup depth and HRT3 max cup depth (OCT disk area: r=-0.61, p=0.0185; OCT rim area: r=-0.69, p=0.0051; OCT cup/disk vertical ratio: r=0.64, p=0.0119; HRT3 cup volume: r=0.58, p=0.0267; HRT3 mean cup depth: r=0.65, p=0.0106; HRT3 max cup depth: r=0.65, p=0.0101) leading to a significant difference compared to patients without DM (OCT disk area: p=0.0165; OCT rim area: p=0.0013; OCT cup/disk vertical ratio: p=0.0034; HRT3 cup volume: p=0.0060; HRT3 mean cup depth: p=0.0062; HRT3 max cup depth: p=0.0080).

Conclusions : In OAG patients with DM, longitudinal changes in CCT are significantly associated with changes in ONH morphology after 4 years, compared to OAG patients without DM.

This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2018 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Honolulu, Hawaii, April 29 - May 3, 2018.