OCT and Compressive Optic Neuropathy

Abstract

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) has provided new and important resources for quantifi cation of retinal neural loss in many different optic nerve diseases including compressive optic neuropathies. As in other optic neuropathies OCT can be useful for diagnosis and follow-up of both optic nerve and chiasmal compressive diseases. Axonal loss can be assessed both through peripapillary retinal nerve fi ber layer measurements as well as using macular thickness measurements, particularly when segmented analysis of different retinal layers are analyzed. By analyzing the amount of axonal loss OCT can also be of help in estimating the possibility of visual improvement in such conditions. In this chapter we discuss the main use of OCT in compressive optic neuropathies including primary optic nerve tumors, extrinsic optic nerve compression by tumors or other orbital lesions and the important group of diseases causing chiasmal compression.