Gender and ethnicity related differences in optic nerve head
Reviewed by Claire Howard

The authors investigated the effect of ethnicity and gender on optic nerve head morphology comparing Indian and Caucasian males and females. The optic nerve head was investigated using spectral-domain optic coherence tomography (SD-OCT). Results showed that disc and rim areas were larger in Caucasian males compared to females, but smaller in Indian males compared to females. Overall, Indian subjects had a significantly larger cup area and volume, but there was no difference in retinal nerve fibre layer between the two groups. These study findings should be considered when assessing a variety of patients in a clinical setting. Care should be taken when comparing patients’ recordings with normative data supplied with OCT machines as these often don’t include gender and ethnicity differences, making results difficult and inaccurate to interpret.

Gender and ethnicity-related differences in optic nerve head topography in healthy Indian and Caucasian participants.
Pilat AV, Gottlob I, Sheth V, et al.
NEURO-OPHTHALMOLOGY
2014;38(4):205-13.