OBJECTIVE The authors studied the orbital hemodynamics of patients with nonvascular and nonglaucomatous optic neuropathy. METHODS The authors performed orbital color Doppler imaging on 19 eyes of 10 patients with compressive, inflammatory, toxic, or hereditary optic neuropathy. The peak systolic velocity (PSV), end diastolic velocity (EDV), and Pourcelot's resistivity (PR) index of the central retinal, temporal short posterior ciliary, nasal short posterior ciliary, and ophthalmic arteries were assessed. Statistical comparison of these values was performed against ten normal controls of similar age and gender using the two-sample Student's t test. RESULTS No statistical significance was found in the PSV, EDV, and PR of the central retinal, temporal short posterior ciliary, nasal short posterior ciliary, and ophthalmic arteries between the optic atrophy and control groups and analysis of 95% confidence intervals for these variables suggested that the tru differences between these groups were small. CONCLUSIONS This study suggests that optic atrophy in and of itself does not appear to alter orbital hemodynamics to the extent previously demonstrated for glaucoma patients.