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Abstract #98559 Published in IGR 22-4
The Weiss Ring, a Major Confounding Factor For Measurements of Peripapillary Retinal Nerve Fiber Layer Thickness: Short title: The Impact of the Weiss Ring On RNFL Thickness Measurements
Lee MW; Kim MS; Yu HY; Park KS; Lee YH; Kim JYAmerican Journal of Ophthalmology 2022; 238: 134-140
PURPOSE: To identify how the Weiss ring affects the measurement of mean and sectoral peripapillary retinal nerve fiber layer (pRNFL) thicknesses. DESIGN: Retrospective, cross-sectional study. METHODS: Subjects were divided into two groups: controls (control group) and subjects in which a Weiss ring was visible on optical coherence tomography fundus images (WR group). Mean and sectoral pRNFL thicknesses were compared between the two groups. RESULTS: A total of 205 eyes were enrolled: 131 eyes in the control group and 74 eyes in the WR group. The mean pRNFL thicknesses of the control group and WR group were 97.2 ± 6.7 µm and 94.6 ± 10.8 µm, respectively (P = .042). In sectoral thickness, the inferior sector of the WR group was 112.1 ± 23.2 µm, which was significantly thinner than that of the control group (125.5 ± 13.3 µm; P < .001). The Weiss ring was located in 10 eyes (13.5%) in the superior sector, 7 eyes (9.5%) in the temporal sector, 40 eyes (54.1%) in the inferior sector, and 17 eyes (23.0%) in the nasal sector. In analyses of reproducibility, the coefficient of variation and intraclass coefficient of the inferior sector measurement were 10.90% and 0.409, respectively, indicating low reliability of the measurement. CONCLUSIONS: Eyes with a Weiss ring showed thinner mean and inferior pRNFL thicknesses than normal controls, which would be a measurement error caused by the Weiss ring. This could be a major confounding factor for analyses of pRNFL changes, especially in glaucoma patients.
From Department of Ophthalmology, Konyang University College of Medicine, Daejeon, Republic of Korea (M.W.L., H.Y.Y., K.S.P., Y.H.L.).
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