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Eye scans detected cell loss earlier in people with glaucoma

Retinal cell density fell 4.16 to 6.86% annually in glaucoma, compared with a 0.27% cell loss rate in healthy volunteers.

Paper by Achyut J. Raghavendra, Kenaan Elbash, Marlon I. Diaz, +2 more authorsDaniel X. Hammer · Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH)
Retinal tissue with widely spaced branching nerve cells curves beside a densely packed healthy patch and a small eye cross-section.

Our read

Biomarkers
Studied:
Cohort study of people with glaucoma and healthy volunteers, 3 to 5 years
What changed:
High-resolution eye scans detected cell loss 0.74 years before conventional OCT in people with glaucoma
The catch:
AO-OCT measurements were more frequent than conventional OCT and visual field tests
In the record:
The 164th paper on glaucoma with results in people; 557 on record in all.

Editor of record: Boris Djordjevic · AgingResearch.News

Paper
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People with glaucoma and healthy volunteers had individual retinal ganglion cells tracked for 3 to 5 years in a preliminary observational study. These nerve cells carry visual signals from the eye to the brain. The researchers used adaptive optics–optical coherence tomography, a high-resolution imaging method.

Retinal cell density decreased by 4.16 to 6.86% annually in people with glaucoma. Healthy volunteers had a 0.27% cell loss rate. The high-resolution method detected cell loss 0.74 years before conventional optical coherence tomography, a retinal imaging test, and 1.49 years before visual field testing, which measures the area a person can see.

Why it matters

Distinguishing glaucoma-related nerve cell loss from normal aging is important for monitoring this cause of irreversible blindness.

Caveats

Earlier detection of cell loss does not show that using these scans would preserve vision. The abstract does not give participant numbers, limiting assessment of how broadly the results apply.

Where the evidence stands

Cell killing (cytotoxicity)

Mice: replicated by independent labs. Cells, worms or flies and humans: a single group.

C, W, M, H: cells, worms or flies, mice, humans. Dark: independent labs found the same change there. Light: one lab or one study. Outline: nothing yet.

Labs are independent when their papers share no last author and no institution.

Against: findings that point the other way from most findings on the same outcome.

Company ties: findings with an author at a company, or from a paper whose competing-interests statement declares ties to one.

Includes the processes named after it and trials of drugs aimed at it.

  • 58 independent labs in 20 countries
  • 1 finding against
  • Funders: National Institutes of Health and others
  • 12 of 67 findings with company ties

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