Reproducibility of measuring lamina cribrosa pore geometry in human and nonhuman primates with in vivo adaptive optics imaging.

PURPOSE The ability to consistently resolve lamina cribrosa pores in vivo has applications in the study of optic nerve head and retinal disease mechanisms. Repeatability was assessed in imaging laminar pores in normal living eyes with a confocal adaptive optics scanning laser ophthalmoscope (AOSLO). METHODS Reflectance images (840 nm) of the anterior lamina cribrosa were acquired using the AOSLO in four or more different sessions in two normal rhesus monkey eyes and three normal human eyes. Laminar pore areas, elongations (ratio of major to minor axes of the best-fit ellipse) and nearest neighbor distances were calculated for each session. Measurement repeatability was assessed across sessions. RESULTS Pore areas ranged from 90 to 4365 μm(2) in monkeys and 154 to 6637 μm(2) in humans. Mean variabilities in measuring pore area and elongation (i.e., mean of the standard deviation of measurements made across sessions for the same pores) were 50 μm(2) (6.1%) and 0.13 (6.7%), respectively, in monkeys and 113 μm(2) (8.3%) and 0.17 (7.7%), respectively, in humans. Mean variabilities in measuring nearest neighbor distances were 1.93 μm (5.2%) in monkeys and 2.79 μm (4.1%) in humans. There were no statistically significant differences in any pore parameters across sessions (ANOVA, P > 0.05). CONCLUSIONS The anterior lamina cribrosa was consistently imaged in vivo in normal monkey and human eyes. The small intersession variability in normal pore geometry suggests that AOSLO imaging could be used to measure and track changes in laminar pores in vivo during glaucomatous progression.