Abstract

At present time domain optical coherence tomography (TD-OCT) plays a less important role in glaucoma diagnostics and is used mainly for macula diagnostics. The Fourier domain optical coherence tomography (FD-OCT) with enhanced resolution has new options to detect glaucoma changes. This new technology is referred as frequency domain or spectral domain OCT. This paper will present current and new options of OCT in glaucoma diagnostics. Measurements of the optic nerve head and the retinal nerve fiber layer thickness using this new technology have been shown to be reproducible. Devices which use TD-OCT (e.g. Stratus-OCT) have a lower resolution than devices that use FD-OCT (e.g. RTVue-100; 10 microm versus 5 microm axial resolution). A new option is the evaluation of the retinal ganglion cell complex. The measurement of the optic nerve head and the retinal nerve fiber layer using FD-OCT are promising for glaucoma diagnostics. How this new technology, especially the ganglion cell complex analysis is comparable to other technologies and whether it is helpful for glaucoma diagnostics and monitoring of management will be evaluated in future studies.