Purpose: The current study was aimed at assessment of optic disk by disk damage likelihood scale (DDLS) staging using slit-lamp biomicroscopy and optical coherence tomography (OCT) in diagnosing primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG) patients.
Methods: This was a cross-sectional observational study of 106 POAG patients, which was conducted from April 2017 to April 2018. All patients underwent slit-lamp fundoscopy with a +78 D lens and high-definition (HD)-OCT, and the vertical cup disk ratios (VCDRs) were recorded. Disk size and neuroretinal rim assessment were done, and the disk was then staged using the recent version, which stages the optic nerve head (ONH) from 1 to 10 as read from the DDLS nomogram table. DDLS scores >5 indicate glaucomatous damage. Pearson coefficient was used to correlate the DDLS staging by slit-lamp biomicroscopy with best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA), intraocular pressure (IOP), disk size, and VCDR and VCDR, mean deviation, and DDLS staging by HD-OCT.
Results: The mean age of the patients was 59.54 ± 6.61 years. The male: female ratio was 2:1. The mean IOP was 16.04 ± 1.97 mmHg, and BCVA was 0.72 ± 0.13 LogMAR units. The mean VCDR on 78 D slit-lamp biomicroscopy was 0.76 ± 0.09 (standard deviation [SD]) (range 0.1-0.77), whereas on HD-OCT, the mean VCDR was 0.81 ± 0.09 (SD) (range 0.07-0.81). The mean deviation on visual field testing in decibels was -14.43 ± 3.31 (SD). The correlation coefficient between DDLS staging by slit-lamp biomicroscopy and DDLS staging by HD-OCT parameters was r = 0.96.
Conclusion: There is a positive correlation between the DDLS system of optic disk evaluation on slit-lamp biomicroscopy and most of the HD-OCT evaluation parameters.
Keywords: Disk damage likelihood scale (DDLS); high-definition optical coherence tomography (HD-OCT); primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG); slit-lamp biomicroscopy; vertical cup disk ratio (VCDR).