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  • RNFL in Healthy Black South African Eyes

    By Arthur Stone
    Selected By: Prem S. Subramanian, MD, PhD
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    Journal Highlights

    Eye
    Published online Nov. 13, 2019

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    Ismail et al. measured retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) thickness in nor­mal black South African patients via spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) and compared it to reference RNFL values in an age- and gender-matched European normative database. They found that RNFL thickness in their study population is clinically and statis­tically significantly thicker than those measurements contained in the built-in European database.

    For this cross-sectional study, conducted from January 2017 to December 2018, the researchers enrolled 132 patients (132 eyes). The mean age of the patients was 41.3 years, and 54 (40.9%) were male. The researchers used the Spectralis SD-OCT machine.

    All RNFL sectors except the temporal sector were significantly thicker than the reference database and measured as follows: global (108.7 µm, p < 0.001), superotemporal (152.4 µm, p < 0.001), superonasal (132.6 µm, p < 0.001), inferotemporal (150.1 µm, p < 0.001), inferonasal (129.2 µm, p < 0.001), nasal (77.7 µm, p < 0.001), and temporal (74.8 µm, p = 0.9534).

    The researchers caution that use of the built-in European database as a comparison across all population groups could lead to erroneous results, as it cannot be assumed that the normative values for non-Eu­ropean populations are the same as their European counterparts. In addition, these databases are machine-specific and not universally applicable.

    Finally, the authors said, the difference in the 1st and 5th percentiles of the study population, when compared to the reference values of the built-in database, is large enough to warrant requiring African-specific databases to avoid underdiagnosis of glaucoma and other diseases caus­ing RNFL thinning. Additional studies are required to confirm these finding in black patients.

    The original article can be found here.