Retinal and optic nerve changes in glaucoma: From animal study to clinical implication.

Animal models of experimental glaucoma provide the ability to longitudinally characterize changes in the optic nerve head and surrounding retinal nerve fiber layer with various imaging modalities and compare them to histomorphometric changes. Analysis of the optic nerve head surface by confocal scanning laser tomography and structures deep to this by spectral domain optical coherence tomography allow for the detection of the earliest structural changes seen in glaucoma. Algorithms utilizing these parameters along with retinal nerve fiber layer measurement are likely to play an important role in the future of glaucoma progression monitoring.