EVALUATION OF A SIGNIFICANTLY SHORTER VERSION OF THE FARNSWORTH-MUNSELL 100-HUE TEST IN PATIENTS WITH 3 DIFFERENT OPTIC NEUROPATHIES

We tested the hypothesis that a subset of the Farnsworth-Munsell 100-h ue test (FM-100) would be a sensitive, specific, and practical means o f monitoring color vision in patients with chronic optic nerve disorde rs. We retrospectively analyzed the records of 1,113 patients affected with optic neuritis (ON), Graves' ophthalmopathy with suspected optic neuropathy, or idiopathic intracranial hypertension with suspected op tic neuropathy (IIH). One hundred six records of patients showed that an FM-100 had been performed (23 ON, 46 Graves', 37 IIH). Forty additi onal patients were studied prospectively (11 ON, 17 Graves', 12 IIH). The sensitivity and specificity of all possible 21 chip subtests were compared against the same statistics for the entire test. We found tha t for these three optic nerve disorders, a test consisting of chips 22 -42 had nearly the same sensitivity and specificity as the entire test when compared with the clinical diagnosis. At 90% specificity, the ra tio of sensitivities of the short version to the original version of t he test were IIH, 53%/45%; optic neuritis, 85%/79%; and Graves', 67%/7 0%. The majority of the clinical value of the test can be achieved in one fourth of the original examination time.