Analysis of retinal nerve fiber bundle damages in glaucoma by using adaptive optics laser scanning ophthalmoscope

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We showed that adaptive optics scanning laser ophthalmoscope (AO-SLO) we originally developed enables clear visualization of the retinal nerve fiber bundles. Retinal nerve fiber bundles seen on AO-SLO revealed structural characteristics of retinal nerve fiber bundles in normal eyes. AL-SLO allowed reproducible measurement of retinal nerve fiber bundle width. Based on this normal findings, we demonstrated that retinal nerve fiber bundles are significantly narrower in glaucomatous eyes than in normal eyes. This abnormality in retinal nerve fiber bundles was associated with visual field sensitivity decrease in cluster. Our report of these findings are the first one as far as we are aware. Our study suggested that AO-SLO is able to analyze the retinal nerve fiber bundle width that no other technologies could not. Thus, retinal nerve fiber bundle imaging on AO-SLO may open a new avenue for glaucoma diagnosis based on 3-dimensional analysis of internal structure of retinal nerve fiber layer.