Growing evidence suggests in glaucoma, the dendritic degeneration of subpopulation of the retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) may precede RGC’s soma death. In this pilot study, we investigated whether visible-light optical coherence tomography (vis-OCT) could detect the difference in the inner plexiform layer (IPL) sublayer thicknesses between small cohorts of healthy and glaucomatous subjects.

We investigated vis-OCT retinal images from nine healthy and seven glaucomatous subjects. Four healthy subjects were scanned three times each in two separate visits, and five healthy and seven glaucoma subjects were scanned three times during a single visit. Raster speckle-reduction scans (3×3×1.2 mm3: horizontal × vertical × axial directions with 8192×8×1024 samplings, respectively), centered at foveola were acquired. IPL sublayers were then manually segmented on averaged A-scan profiles.