Association of Glaucoma-Related, Optical Coherence Tomography-Measured Macular Damage With Vision-Related Quality of Life.
Prager Alisa J, Hood Donald C, Liebmann Jeffrey M, De Moraes C Gustavo, Al-Aswad Lama A, Yu Qi, Cioffi George A, Blumberg Dana M
AI Summary
This study found that diffuse macular damage in glaucoma patients, identified by OCT, is a stronger predictor of worse vision-related quality of life than simple thickness measurements, guiding personalized care.
Abstract
Importance
Little is known about the association between structural macular damage and self-reported visual function of people with glaucoma.
Objective
To determine the association between vision-related quality of life among patients with primary open-angle glaucoma with structural macular retinal ganglion cell plus inner plexiform layer (RGC+IPL) loss identified by spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) machine-generated deviation maps and thickness measurements.
Design, setting, and participants: This cross-sectional prospective study was conducted from March 1, 2014, to March 30, 2015, at the Department of Ophthalmology at Columbia University Medical Center. The participants were 107 patients who were enrolled in the study and represented the entire range of glaucomatous damage. All 214 eyes of the 107 participants underwent 10-2 visual field tests and SD-OCT scans, and all participants completed the 25-item National Eye Institute Visual Function Questionnaire (NEI VFQ-25). They also received ophthalmologic examination, including medical history review, best-corrected visual acuity, slitlamp biomicroscopy, intraocular pressure measurement, gonioscopy, dilated ophthalmoscopy, and standard automated perimetry. Macular RGC+IPL loss was determined by diffuse or focal patterns on SD-OCT-generated deviation maps (probability map that compared patients with aged-matched normative database) and thickness measurements.
Main outcomes and measures: Regression analyses to assess the association of NEI VFQ-25 scores (score range: 41.9-99.5; higher scores indicate better functioning) with patterns of RGC+IPL loss and with RGC+IPL thickness measurements.
Results
Of the 107 patients, 48 (45%) were men and the mean (SD) age was 65 (11) years. The self-reported race/ethnicity of participants consisted of 45 (46%) black, 47 (48%) white, and 6 (6%) "other" individuals. In the univariable analyses, patients with diffuse macular RGC+IPL loss had mean composite Rasch-calibrated NEI VFQ-25 scores that were 6.15 points lower than the scores of patients with focal damage (β = -6.15; 95% CI, -11.7 to -0.59; P = .03). The effect remained significant even after controlling for mean RGC+IPL thickness (β = -7.64; 95% CI, -14.2 to -1.03; P = .02).
Conclusions and relevance: Characteristic patterns of glaucoma-related macular RGC+IPL loss appeared to be more important predictors of vision-related quality of life than thickness measures, with diffuse RGC+IPL loss as an indicator for diminished vision-related quality of life.
MeSH Terms
Shields Classification
Key Concepts4
In a cross-sectional prospective study of 107 patients with primary open-angle glaucoma, patients with diffuse macular retinal ganglion cell plus inner plexiform layer (RGC+IPL) loss had mean composite Rasch-calibrated NEI VFQ-25 scores that were 6.15 points lower than the scores of patients with focal damage (β = -6.15; 95% CI, -11.7 to -0.59; P = .03).
The association between diffuse macular retinal ganglion cell plus inner plexiform layer (RGC+IPL) loss and lower NEI VFQ-25 scores remained significant even after controlling for mean RGC+IPL thickness (β = -7.64; 95% CI, -14.2 to -1.03; P = .02) in 107 patients with primary open-angle glaucoma.
Characteristic patterns of glaucoma-related macular retinal ganglion cell plus inner plexiform layer (RGC+IPL) loss, specifically diffuse RGC+IPL loss, were more important predictors of vision-related quality of life than thickness measures in patients with primary open-angle glaucoma.
A cross-sectional prospective study was conducted from March 1, 2014, to March 30, 2015, at the Department of Ophthalmology at Columbia University Medical Center, enrolling 107 patients with primary open-angle glaucoma.
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