Study of the contralateral eye in patients with glaucoma and a unilateral perimetric defect.

摘要

PURPOSE: To study the unaffected fellow eye in patients with glaucoma and unilateral visual field defect, using conventional automated achromatic perimetry, blue-yellow short-wavelength automated perimetry (SWAP), and a nerve fiber layer analyzer (GDx; Laser Diagnostic Technologies, San Diego, CA). METHODS: Eighteen patients in whom a unilateral visual field defect was detected on conventional computerized threshold perimetry were selected. The contralateral eyes of these patients were studied with normal conventional threshold perimetry using blue-yellow perimetry and also were studied with the nerve fiber layer analyzer. Also, 18 eyes of 18 sex- and age- (+/-3 years) matched persons without glaucoma were selected as a control group. RESULTS: Of the 18 contralateral eyes, seven (38.8%) showed a visual field defect on blue-yellow conventional perimetry, and 10 (55.5%) showed a defect of the nerve fiber layer when evaluated with the nerve fiber analyzer. Of the 10 eyes with abnormal visual fields on the nerve fiber analyzer, six (60.0%) also showed a defect on blue-yellow perimetry. In the control group, no eyes showed visual field defect on SWAP, but three eyes (16.6% false positive rate) showed a visual field defect on the nerve fiber layer analyzer. CONCLUSION: These findings suggest that what appeared to be unilateral visual field defects may in fact have been bilateral in at least 33.3% of our patients (n = 6) for whom there was agreement between results of SWAP and the nerve fiber layer analyzer.