Purpose: To determine the relevance of epiretinal membranes (ERMs) in primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG) and potential risk for glaucoma severity.
Methods: Sixty eyes of 30 patients with POAG who had a unilateral ERM were analyzed; 60 nonglaucomatous eyes of 30 patients with a unilateral ERM also were recruited in this institutional cross-sectional study. Patients underwent swept-source (SS) optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging and visual field testing. Intraindividual differences in the SS-OCT retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) disc cupping area measurements and visual field outcomes were analyzed in the two groups.
Results: In patients with POAG, the mean circumpapillary RNFL thickness in the eyes with an ERM was 75.6 ± 16.5 μm superiorly and 71.8 ± 26.0 inferiorly compared with the fellow eyes without an ERM (87.2 ± 23.6 μm, P = 0.0061 and 81.3 ± 27.7 μm, P = 0.034, respectively). The areas of disc cupping and cup-to-disc ratio seen on OCT horizontal and vertical B-scans were larger in eyes with an ERM than in the fellow eyes without ERM (P = 0.0004 and P = 0.0011, respectively). The average mean deviations were -11.6 ± 7.5 dB in the ERM group and -8.19 ± 6.4 dB in the group with no ERM (P = 0.029). Eyes with an ERM received more antiglaucoma eye drops (P = 0.018). Those differences were not seen between eyes with an ERM or fellow eyes in patients without glaucoma.
Conclusions: The presence of an ERM can be a potential risk factor for unilateral severity in eyes with POAG.