[Relationship between structure and function - what is first affected in glaucomatous disease and its progression and what implications can be drawn for glaucoma diagnostic procedures?].

The development of a glaucomatous optic neuropathy is a long-lasting process in which retinal ganglion cells do not die spontaneously. Therefore to detect early changes in this process, functional tests should be done to first detect those changes that imaging technologies miss because the latter methods can only detect changes when retinal ganglion cells have already died and a consecutive loss of retinal nerve fibres has occurred.