What is the Cup in glaucoma?

What is the Cup in glaucoma?

The optic disc has a center portion called the “cup” which is normally quite small in comparison to the entire optic disc. In people with glaucoma damage, because of increased pressure in the eye and/or loss of blood flow to the optic nerve, these nerve fibers begin to die.

Can optic nerve cupping be treated?

If optic nerve perfusion is the main cause of the optic nerve cupping, medical treatment to increase the perfusion pressure will help to minimize further damage. Using medical treatments to lower the IOP will also help to reduce further damage to the optic nerve fibers within the optical disc.

What causes optic cupping?

OPTIC DISC CUPPING. A hallmark of glaucoma is excavation or enlargement of the optic disc, referred to as cupping. The vast majority of pathologic cupping is caused by glaucoma. Disc cupping in the absence of elevated IOP may be caused by normal-tension glaucoma, which accounts for 20% to 30% of open-angle glaucoma.

What does cupped optic nerve mean?

Cupped disc. The cupping of the optic nerve means the size of the depression in the middle of the nerve when viewed from the front of the eye. When there is damage to the optic nerve, the cupping increases.

What is cup disc ratio in the eye?

The normal cup to disc ratio (the diameter of the cup divided by the diameter of the whole nerve head or disc) is about 1/3 or 0.3. There is some normal variation here, with some people having almost no cup (thus having 1/10 or 0.1), and others having 4/5ths or 0.8 as a cup to disc ratio.

What is in the optic cup?

The inner layer of the optic cup eventually forms the outer nuclear layer (which contains rods and cones), the inner nuclear layer (which contains bipolar cells), and the ganglion layer (which contains ganglion cells).

Can you have optical cupping without glaucoma?

Look for other possibilities. Note unexpectedly low visual acuity. Patients who have non-glaucomatous cupping of the optic nerve tend to have lower visual acuity; studies have found that vision less than 20/40 may indicate non-glaucomatous cupping associated with intracranial masses.

Does cup-to-disc ratio improve?

Clinical improvement in visual fields was correlated with the degree of improvement of cup:disc ratio (P = 0.025). Conclusion: Most patients showing a 40% lowering of IOP after glaucoma surgery show improved optic nerve morphology as measured by the HRT.

Does cup-to-disc ratio increase with age?

Vertical optic cup diameter and optic cup area increased with age. The mean cup/disc diameter ratio increased by about 0.1 between the ages of 30 and 70 years.

Is glaucoma common in one eye only?

In time, most patients will develop glaucoma in both eyes. Acute angle-closure glaucoma may also initially occur in only one eye, but there is a 40 to 80% chance that the other eye will develop angle closure over a 5 to 10 year period.