OCT for glaucoma

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is, today, one of the most important tools for diagnosing and monitoring glaucoma. It's a non-invasive, fast, and painless test that uses light to generate high-resolution images of the retina's layers and the optic nerve.

In the context of glaucoma, OCT measures the thickness of the retinal nerve fiber layer — precisely the structure that's progressively lost as the disease advances. This allows damage to be detected even before it shows up on the visual field, and lets us compare studies over time to see whether treatment is working.

The test is done in-office, takes only a few minutes per eye, and in most cases requires no special preparation or pupil dilation.