Incidence of optic disc haemorrhages in chronic simple glaucoma and ocular hypertension

Abstract

1829 photographs of optic discs taken during routine examination and follow-up of 320 glaucoma patients and 169 cases of ocular hypertension were examined for the presence of haemorrhages on the disc. As expected, the observed incidence of disc haemorrhages rose with increase in the number of occasions on which the patient was photographed. It was concluded that at least one-third of glaucoma patients show a disc haemorrhage at one time or another. Disc haemorrhages were seen more often in patients with established glaucoma than in those with ocular hypertension. In patients with chronic simple glaucoma eyes with full fields and low cup: disc ratios showed haemorrhages less often than eyes with field defects and more advanced damage to the optic disc, but apart from this there was no marked tendency for haemorrhages to occur at a particular stage of the disease. Haemorrhages were more frequent in low-tension than in chronic simple glaucoma, but this was probably only part of a more general variation which was revealed when eyes were graded according to the maximum pressures ever recorded, there being a very significant trend in which more haemorrhages were found in eyes with lower than with higher intraocular pressures over the range from 10 to 60 mmHg.