THE REVERSIBILITY OF VISUAL-FIELD DEFECTS IN PRIMARY OPEN ANGLE GLAUCOMA

The course of the glaucomatous visual field seems to be best followed by computerized perimetry which allows threshold evaluation in a great number of locations and statistical analysis of the results. To determine the visual field defect reversibility, 16 patients (27 eyes) affected by uncontrolled open-angle glaucoma underwent visual field analysis before and after prescription of a new medical therapy. To avoid the "learning effect" and to decrease the influence of the heterogeneous component of long-term fluctuation, the visual field examination was repeated within 48 hours whenever a change in sensitivity was detected. In addition a total of 10 normal eyes in 10 patients were tested as a control group. A statistically significant threshold improvement was demonstrable after one week of therapy in 31.7 % of the eyes.