Deficit-undamaged visual field area monitoring in glaucomatous patients with advanced perimetric damage: its usefulness

This report contains the observations of the authors on the behaviour with time of the visual field areas (VF) which appear undamaged by deficit withi n the perimetric findings where at the same time there is advanced glaucoma tous damage. A retrospective study has been made on the records of a Humphr ey perimeter 640 VFA relating to glaucomatous patients with these perimetri c characteristics in whom at least 12 examinations (programme "Central 30-2 threshold test") had been made and who, for a good part of the period of o bservation at least, had recorded a topographic stability of the deficits. There were found 12 series of examinations responding to the required neces sities. The analysis of the findings used a method that separated from the global mean deviation (MD) that part concerning the pathological area and t hat referring to the "healthy" area of the visual field (VF). In 7 of the 8 cases where, at a certain point in the follow-up, there becam e evident a trend towards worsening, there was also a significant increase in the MD of the undamaged, which occurred before the deterioration of the "healthy" area became evident by the appearance of "probability symbols" in the "total deviation" map. In the 4 cases where there was stability with t ime, the MD values relating to the undamaged area of the VF were quite cons tant with time.