This study found that event-based analysis detected glaucoma progression in a significantly higher percentage of patients and did so earlier than trend-based methods.

Monitoring structural changes (via disc photography and OCT) is helpful to catch glaucoma in its early stages, when intervention can be most effective in preventing major vision loss. A recent study, whose findings were published in Journal of Glaucoma, aimed to compare the efficacy of event-based vs. trend-based analysis in glaucoma detection.

The researchers performed both event-based and trend-based analyses and reported that the former method was significantly more effective at detecting glaucoma progression. 

Moreover, using high-density 3D OCT measurements of MDB neuroretinal rim thickness, event-based analysis detected progression in 52.4% of eyes tested, compared to only 9.7% detected by trend-based analysis using the same measurement.

The present study showed that event-based analysis using the MDB rim thickness parameter was a better test than RNFL thickness for detecting glaucoma progression over a five-year period,”