The objective of this systematic literature review is to assess the role of retinal optical coherence tomography (OCT) in the evaluation of patients with tumors of the visual pathway. We performed a PubMed database search according to the guidelines of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses. The search was restricted to articles published in English between 2000 and 2016, with at least 10 human adult participants enrolled. Twenty-seven articles met the eligibility criteria. All studies investigated tumors of the anterior visual pathway. Both time-domain and spectral-domain OCT technologies were used and the role of OCT as diagnostic and/or prognostic tool was studied. Retinal OCT provides structural information about ganglion cell axon integrity and is complementary to visual function examination. OCT is a prognostic factor for post-operative visual outcome.
Keywords: Optical coherence tomography; Retinal nerve fiber layer; Tumor; Visual pathway.