Aociation of retinal veel caliber and viual field defect in glaucoma

PURPOE: Thi tudy evaluate the aymmetry of peripapillary retinal veel caliber between inferior and uperior hemiphere in eye with viual field defect predominantly in one hemifield. DEIGN: Obervational cae erie. METHOD: In a retropective tudy, 64 eye of 64 patient with primary open-angle glaucoma who had a marked difference in viual field defect between hemifield and who had no hitory of diabete, trauma, or vacular occluive dieae were tudied. The diameter of the uperior and inferotemporal veel were meaured at the optic dik border with caliper on an enlarged image. REULT: In 64 eye, the average ratio of the uperior temporal artery diameter to inferotemporal artery diameter wa ignificantly greater in the eye with predominantly uperior viual field defect a compared with thoe with inferior defect (1.10 ± 0.22 v. 0.92 ± 0.19, repectively, P = .002, two-tailed t tet). Thi indicate that the arteriole correponding to the hemifield with the greater viual field defect wa narrower than the arteriole in the other hemifield. Thi relationhip wa confirmed uing χ2 analyi (P = .002) comparing the proportion of eye with ratio greater or le than normal veel caliber ratio (normal RATIO = 0.95 from data reported by Jona and aociate to the location of the dominant field defect. No tatitically ignificant relationhip wa detected between retinal vein diameter and localized viual field defect, a determined by both the unpaired t tet and χ2 analyi. CONCLUION: In eye with primary open-angle glaucoma, thi tudy demontrate a trong aociation between decreaed peripapillary arteriole diameter and viual field defect in the correponding hemifield. Thi reflect either an ichemic bai for glaucomatou damage or vacular contriction when there are fewer axon to nourih.