SUPERFICIAL VESSEL DENSITY, RETINAL NERVE FIBER LAYER THICKNESS, AND VISUAL FIELD LOSS IN PRIMARY OPEN-ANGLE AND PSEUDOEXFOLIATIVE GLAUCOMA.

The aim was to examine peripapillary and macular superficial vessel density, peripapillary thickness of the nerve fiber layer, and inner thickness of the macula in eyes with primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG) and pseudoexfoliative glaucoma (PXG) depending on the visual field impairment. A total of 50 eyes were diagnosed as POAG and 50 as PXG. Both groups were divided into 3 subgroups according to HAP2 criteria of visual field impairment. All eyes underwent optical coherence tomography angiography (OCT-A). Radial peripapillary capillary (RPC) density, peripapillary retinal nerve fiber layer (pRNFL) thickness, superficial macular vessel density (SMVD), and macular thickness between the inner limiting membrane and inner plexiform layer (ILM-IPL) were compared. The overall mean measured values did not show a statistically significant difference between the groups. All measured parameters were statistically significantly lower with more extensive visual field damage within the group. The strongest positive correlation was found between the pRNFL thickness and RPC density values (p=0.893), and strongest negative correlation between the mean defect of visual field and ILM-IPL (p=-0.824). No statistically significant difference was found between POAG and PXG in all values measured on OCT-A. In conclusion, visual field loss is more strongly correlated with the loss of nerve fiber layer thickness than the superficial vessel density, which may suggest that the loss of RNFL precedes the loss of superficial vessel density.