New possibilities of perimetry in screening and early diagnosis of glaucoma

Abstract

PURPOSE. To study the diagnostic effectiveness of an improved software version of the well-known authors' modification of Frequency Doubling Technology (FDT) perimetry by comparing it with the previous software version and standard automated perimetry on the same contingent of healthy individuals and patients with primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG).METHODS. The study included 56 patients (105 eyes) (mean age 61±13.2 years) with POAG. Patients were divided into three groups depending on the stage of glaucoma: group 1 — early stage (39 eyes), group 2 — moderate (25 eyes), and group 3 — advanced (9 eyes) stage. The fourth (control) group included 32 eyes of 16 healthy people (average age 48.2±6.2 years). All study subjects underwent standard automated perimetry (SAP) on the Humphrey III visual field analyzer and non-standard perimetry in the form of our own modification of FDT perimetry and its improved software version — FDT VR version based on the new portable automatic perimeter "Stimulus" (OOO Total Vizhen, Russia). The optic nerve disc was evaluated on the Heidelberg Retina Tomograph 3.RESULTS. The software version of the authors' modification of FDT perimetry has been improved for liquid crystal monitors and adapted to the portable perimeter "Stimulus". When comparing diagnostic effectiveness, both variants of FDT perimetry are not inferior to SAP in sensitivity (87.6; 87.8 and 86.7%, respectively), and in terms of specificity (98.2; 98.1 and 84.4%, respectively) they are superior. A strong (r=0.99988) and reliable (p<0.05) correlation was found between the average values of light sensitivity for both variants of FDT perimetry.CONCLUSION. The introduction of FDT perimetry based on the new portable automatic perimeter "Stimulus" into widespread ophthalmological practice can contribute to improving the effectiveness of screening and early diagnosis of glaucoma.