Glaucoma is one of the leading causes of irreversible blindness worldwide. The disease causes the loss of retinal nerve fibers (RNFs) and therefore visual field impairment. It is thought that in the early stages of glaucoma, before the loss of RNFs, the intracellular microtubules of the RNF axons disappear, altering the birefringent properties of the RNF-Layer (RNFL). In this study, we measured the birefringent properties of the RNFL using a polarization-sensitive OCT to compare glaucoma vs. healthy eyes. We observed a significantly reduced birefringence of the RNFL in glaucoma compared to healthy controls (0.090 ±0.009°/µm vs. 0.100 ±0.010°/µm, p<0.001).
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