Larger optic nerve heads have more nerve fibers in normal monkey eyes.

The cup-to-disc ratio and the neural rim area are used to detect glaucoma damage to the optic nerve. Both parameters are dependent on the size of the optic disc and on the number of optic nerve fibers. We compared the size of the disc in fundus photographs with the number of nerve fibers in 25 normal monkey eyes. The number of fibers increased linearly with an increasing disc area. One must know the size of the optic disc to evaluate properly the cup-to-disc ratio or neural rim area.