Video color perimetry: impairment in glaucoma suspects

Purpose: To detect mild visual field impairment in asymptomatic glaucoma suspect patients. Methods: Color perception within the visual field was tested with customized color video perimetry. The key features of the system were stimuli color desaturation, low-level luminance and equiluminant gray background. Twenty patients with asymptomatic glaucoma were tested and compared with a group of age-matched control subjects. Results: Automated perimetry test findings differed significantly in the two groups, particularly for short-wavelength sensitivity (blue). The severity of color impairment correlated directly with intraocular pressure. Conclusion: Desaturated low-luminance video perimetry will reliably detect and quantify asymptomatic visual field defects. A previous work on multiple sclerosis has detected a mild long-wavelength (red) impairment in asymptomatic patients after an episode of optic neuritis, even in clinically unaffected fellow eyes. Our findings in glaucoma suspect patients indicate that a mild blue impairment could be the initial sign of this disease.