Longitudinal Changes in Peripapillary Atrophy in the Ocular Hypertension Treatment Study A Case-Control Assessment

Purpose: To explore the association between peripapillary atrophy (PPA) area and conversion from ocular hypertension (OHT) to glaucoma. Design: Prospective, longitudinal cohort study of cases and controls. Participants: We included 279 age-matched and follow-up time-matched eyes with OHT that converted to glaucoma and 279 eyes with OHT that did not convert to glaucoma. Methods: Initial and last acceptable optic disc photos were analyzed. Disc, alpha-zone, and beta-zone PPA were traced independently by 2 trained readers and their areas were measured with Photoshop. The alpha-zone and beta-zone areas were expressed as a percentage of optic disc area. Main Outcome Measures: alpha-Zone and beta-zone PPA size over time. Results: Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) demonstrated that readers had good agreement on disc area (ICC = 0.97) and beta-zone (ICC = 0.82), but not alpha-zone (ICC = 0.48). The beta-zone, as a percentage of disc area, increased in size (P < 0.001) in both eyes with incident primary open-angle glaucoma (mean, 10.6%; standard deviation, 22.6%) and matched controls (mean, 10.1%; standard deviation, 33.7) over follow-up (mean, 12.3 years). The increase in size did not differ between cases and controls (P = 0.82). Enlargement of the beta-zone was not correlated with follow-up time (P = 0.39). Conclusions: The results did not show a difference in size of the beta-zone at baseline between eyes that proceed to develop glaucoma and those that do not. Moreover, the beta-zone enlarges equally in case and control eyes during follow-up. (C) 2015 by the American Academy of Ophthalmology.