OBJECTIVE To compare measurements of optic nerve topography of ocular hypertensive patients with those of normal subjects and primary open-angle glaucoma patients. METHODS Three age-matched study groups of 46 ocular hypertensive patients, 46 primary open-angle glaucoma patients, and 46 normal subjects were recruited from patients and volunteers of a glaucoma referral practice. Optic nerve topography was measured using a confocal scanning laser tomograph, the Heidelberg Retina Tomograph. The following optic nerve parameters were evaluated: disk area, cup/disk area ratio, cup shape, height in contour, rim area, rim volume, maximum cup depth, cup area, cup volume, retinal height, and retinal cross-section area. For this cross-sectional study, analysis of variance was used to evaluate overall differences among the three subject groups and the Tukey-Kramer multiple comparison test to evaluate differences between the means of two groups. RESULTS Statistically significant differences among study groups were found for all topographic optic nerve parameters evaluated. Despite considerable overlap in optic nerve parameter measurements among the study groups, mean values of ocular hypertensive eyes were intermediate between those for normal and primary open-angle glaucoma eyes. Statistically significant differences were found between ocular hypertensive and glaucomatous eyes for all optic nerve parameters measured, and between ocular hypertensive and normal eyes for disk area, height in contour, rim area, and rim volume. CONCLUSIONS In age-matched groups, mean measurements of certain topographic optic nerve parameters of ocular hypertensive eyes differ from those of normal and glaucomatous eyes.