Although the findings are similar in the two studies, the study populations are very different. Dr. Hollo1 included only 27 primary open angle glaucoma (POAG), 14 ocular hypertensive, and 9 healthy eyes. He did not include the numbers of patients in each stage of disease, and only mentioned the visual field (VF) mean deviation (MD) ranging from early to advanced. [VF MD (median, quartiles): −6.5 (−2.6, −17.2)].
In contrast, we studied advanced glaucoma eyes and demonstrated a regional and global structure-function relationship between macular vessel density and 10–2 VF sensitivity.2 All 44 eyes of our study group had MD<−10 dB. It has been shown that especially retinal nerve fiber layer thickness reaches the floor at visual Field MD <−10 dB and thus the structure-function relationship varies across the glaucoma continuum. This is in line with our prior studies in which global associations between whole macula and parafoveal vessel densities and 24–2 VF MD in advanced disease have been reported3. Moreover, we have shown that in advanced glaucoma, particularly when VF MD is worse than −14 dB, OCTA-measured pfVD is a promising tool for monitoring progression because it does not have a detectable measurement floor4.
We thank Dr. Hollo for his interest in our study.
Funding Support:
National Institutes of Health/National Eye Institute Grants R01EY029058, Core Grant P30EY022589; and an Unrestricted Grant from Research to Prevent Blindness (New York, NY).
Footnotes
Commercial Disclosures:
1 Elham Ghahari: none
2 Sasan Moghimi: none
3 Robert N. Weinreb: C: Aerie Pharmaceuticals, Allergan, Eyenovia, Topcon; F: Heidelberg Engineering, Centervue, Optovue, Topcon, Carl Zeiss Meditec Inc., Research to Prevent Blindness (New York, NY), National Eye Institute.
References:
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