Significance of Farnsworth-Munsell 100 Hue Test and Anomaloscope on Acquired Color Vision Deficiency in Glaucoma Patients

ABSTRACT

It is well known that, optic nerve damage in glaucoma begins and proceeds before the glaucomatous visual field defects become evident. Recently, various diagnostic methods were introduced to detect early optic nerve damage in patients with suspected glaucoma Using the Farnsworth-Munsell 100 Hue test and the Neitz anomaloscope, the incidence, severity, and patterns of color vIsIon deficiency was investigated in 65 normal eyes, 24 ocular hypertensive eyes, and 64 glaucoma eyes to find out the relation between glaucoma and color vision deficiency. The incidence of color vision deficiency in the normal subjects, ocular hypertensives, and glaucoma patients were 20%, 25%, and 78.1 % respectively, which confirmed the correlation of glaucoma to the occurrence of color vision deficiency (R2=0.63). The glaucoma patients with color vision deficiency were found to have more profound defect compared to the normal individuals or ocular hypertensives. Among the glaucoma patients, those with severe visual field defect showed more profound color vision deficiency compared to those with mild or moderate visual field defect (pcolor vlslOn deficiency in glaucoma patients were tritanoid in 84%, and non specific in 16%, which signified the high correlation of glaucoma to the tritanoid defect (R2=0.66).