Optic disc drusen--a photographic study. II. Retinal nerve fibre layer photography.

As part of an examination of 180 patients with optic disc drusen fundus photographs of 159 cases were evaluated. Twenty-one patients had no fundus photographs, and 12 cases had only autofluorescence pictures, positive colour transparencies or fluorescein angiograms. Peripapillary retinal nerve fibre layer (RNFL) was examined in 147 patients from black-and-white stereo-photographs of the optic disc (116) or from special RNFL pictures (4) or from both (27). Fifty-three of 147 patients had been photographed two or more times during the years from 1967 to 1981. The regional grading of the RNFL was performed separately from 6 sectors around the disc from 386 series of photographs, and the findings were later compared with the patients' visual fields. The eyes with buried drusen usually showed normal RNFL and normal fields, but the visible drusen were often associated with thinning or slits or atrophy of the peripapillary nerve fibre bundles and with visual field defects.