Abstract
Ischaemia, loss of neural tissue, glial cell activation and tissue remodelling
are symptoms of anterior ischaemic as well as glaucomatous optic neuropathy
leading to pallor of the optic nerve head. Here, we describe a simple method for
the pallor measurement using a fundus camera equipped with a colour CCD camera
and a special dual bandpass filter. The reproducibility of the determined mean
pallor value was 11.7\% (coefficient of variation for repeated measurements in the
same subject); the variation over six healthy subjects was 14.8\%. A significant
difference between the mean pallor of an atrophic disc and that of the
contralateral eye of the same individual was found. However, even the clinically
unaffected eye showed a significantly increased pallor compared to the mean of
the healthy control group. Thus, optic disc pallor measurement, as described
here, may be helpful in the early detection and follow-up of optic neuropathy.
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