COLOR DISCRIMINATION ELLIPSES IN PATIENTS WITH DOMINANT OPTIC ATROPHY

Many colour tests require a visual acuity of at least 0.1, making them unsuitable for low vision patients. To assess colour vision in patien ts with sub-normal acuity, we re-designed a previously described test so that its spatial details would be coarse enough to be resolvable by subjects with severe visual impairment. The test measures chromatic d iscrimination along 20 axes evenly spaced in CIE 1976 Lu*v* colour sp ace. We detail the results for this lest in a group of patients with d ominant optic atrophy. Despite the lack of evidence for genetic hetero geneity in dominant optic atrophy, we observed phenotypic variation bo th between and within families. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd, All rig hts reserved.