Conclusions: Size V full-threshold testing gives a similar number of abnormal test locations in patients with glaucoma compared with the size III Swedish interactive thresholding algorithm standard test. Size V testing, with its greater dynamic range and lower variability, may be a viable alternative to size III testing in patients with glaucoma.

PURPOSE:To compare false-negative (FN) rates for Full Threshold (FULL) and Swedish Interactive Threshold Algorithm (SITA) Standard automated perimetry in healthy control subjects and glaucoma patients.METHODS:One eye of 19 glaucoma patients and 5 normal control subjects underwent 5 visual field examinations within 6 weeks on the Humphrey Field Analyzer II using the 24-2 FULL and SITA testing procedures. The order of presentation of test procedures was counterbalanced across participants. We obtained FN response procedures that presented stimuli 9 dB greater than a previously determined threshold value at specific locations in the visual field (FULL) or up to 20 dB greater than the threshold value (SITA), and evaluated whether the patient responded to these suprathreshold stimuli. We compared the percentage of FN responses for the FULL and SITA tests before (Peridata output) and after postprocessing of data.RESULTS:The percentage of FNs was almost twice as high for FULL testing compared with the 2 SITA analyses. The SD of FN percentages was half as large for SITA postprocessing compared with FULL and SITA Peridata procedures. Because the distributions were not normally distributed, a Kruskal-Wallis analysis of variance was performed and revealed a statistically significant difference (H=13.094, P<0.001) for FN percentages among the 3 evaluations.CONCLUSIONS:FULL test procedures yield about twice as many FNs as SITA procedures. This may be related to the SITA method of testing for FN in relatively normal areas as opposed to any location (even if it has low sensitivity) with FULL. Because FN responses can be due to either high variability in damaged areas or pathologic variations, these revised FN procedures provide greater assistance in properly interpreting visual field results.

PURPOSE:The mean defect (MD) of the visual field is a global statistical index used to monitor overall visual field change over time. Our goal was to investigate the relationship of MD and its variability for two clinically used strategies (Swedish Interactive Threshold Algorithm [SITA] standard size III and full threshold size V) in glaucoma patients and controls.METHODS:We tested one eye, at random, for 46 glaucoma patients and 28 ocularly healthy subjects with Humphrey program 24-2 SITA standard for size III and full threshold for size V each five times over a 5-week period. The standard deviation of MD was regressed against the MD for the five repeated tests, and quantile regression was used to show the relationship of variability and MD. A Wilcoxon test was used to compare the standard deviations of the two testing methods following quantile regression.RESULTS:Both types of regression analysis showed increasing variability with increasing visual field damage. Quantile regression showed modestly smaller MD confidence limits. There was a 15% decrease in SD with size V in glaucoma patients (P = 0.10) and a 12% decrease in ocularly healthy subjects (P = 0.08).CONCLUSIONS:The repeatability of size V MD appears to be slightly better than size III SITA testing. When using MD to determine visual field progression, a change of 1.5 to 4 decibels (dB) is needed to be outside the normal 95% confidence limits, depending on the size of the stimulus and the amount of visual field damage.

PURPOSE:A variety of pointwise linear regression (PLR) criteria have been proposed for determining glaucomatous visual field progression. However, alternative PLR criteria have only been assessed on a limited basis. The purpose of this study was to evaluate a range of PLR slope and significance criteria to define a clinically useful progression decision rule for longitudinal visual field examinations.METHODS:Visual field data for each of 140 eyes (one per participant among 96 cases and 44 controls) were evaluated using the Humphrey Field Analyzer II program 24-2 Swedish interactive thresholding algorithm standard test strategy and Goldmann size III stimuli. The pointwise linear regression A2 (PLRA2) method was used to analyze the data, which included nine visual field examinations performed every 6 months for 4 years. Data from the Ocular Hypertension Treatment Study (OHTS) were used to validate the decision rule.RESULTS:Several slope criteria produced specificities of 0.90 or higher, particularly slope criteria of less than -1.2 dB/y. The use of the slope criterion less than -1.2 dB/y at a significance level of P < 0.04 for classification resulted in a hit rate of 0.38, more than a 2-fold increase compared with a commonly used standard slope criterion of less than -1.0 dB/y at a significance level of P < 0.01. A similar increase in the hit rate was shown for a slope of less than -1.2 dB/y and P < 0.04 compared with the standard criterion in the independent OHTS validation data.CONCLUSIONS:When systematically evaluating criteria for detecting glaucoma progression, PLR criteria can be refined by requiring a stricter slope criterion such as less than -1.2 dB/y and relaxing the significance criterion to P < 0.04. Increasing the hit rate of PLR will be useful for early detection and treatment of glaucoma.

PURPOSE:It is thought that large perimetric stimuli are insensitive for demonstrating visual field defects. To test the hypothesis that there is no difference in the total number of abnormal test locations with total deviation empiric probability plots in glaucoma patients, we compared results of glaucoma patients tested with sizes III (0.43° diameter), V (1.72°), and VI (3.44°), and size threshold perimetry (STP), a method that finds threshold by changing stimulus size.METHODS:We derived normative limits for total deviation probability plots using the second test from 60 age-matched normals. We analyzed the probability plots of 120 glaucoma patients (mean deviation was -9.3 ± 6.1 dB with a range of -0.2 to -31.6) at the 42 nonblind spot locations common to the tests. We compared the number of abnormal test locations at the 5% level among the tests using one-way repeated measures ANOVA on ranks. We stratified the results by mean deviation.RESULTS:There was a statistically significant difference in the number of abnormal test locations among the tests: III, 28.5; V, 29.7; VI, 27.0; and STP, 28.8, P = 0.001; Tukey pairwise comparisons were statistically significant for the assessments between sizes V and VI and between STP and size VI. When stratifying by mean deviation, with mild visual loss, size V was most sensitive, followed by STP; size VI appeared slightly less sensitive.CONCLUSIONS:Size V and STP provide favorable stimulus methodology for detection of mild to moderate glaucoma. Size VI appears slightly less sensitive for glaucoma with mild loss.

Purpose. To compare test-retest variability in rarebit perimetry (RBP) and conventional standard automated perimetry (SAP) using Goldmann size I and III stimuli. Methods. Seventeen normal subjects underwent RBP, size I SAP, and size III SAP on five separate visits within a 5-week period. Test-retest variability could not be directly compared because of differences in units. Instead, data were transformed to lie on the same scale by calculating a percentile range to mean ratio for each test. Results. Percentile range to mean ratio was highest for size I (3.42 ± 0.62), followed by size III (2.29 ± 0.55), and RBP (0.29 ± 0.10). Results for all three tests were significantly different from each other. Conclusions. Comparison of tests with different scales is problematic, but RBP's retest variability appears to be significantly less than both sizes I and III SAP in the measurement of normal subjects.

OBJECTIVE:To compare empirical probability plots in patients with glaucoma for size V and III perimetry testing.METHODS:We computed empirical probability plot percentile limits after testing 60 age-matched controls tested with both size III (Swedish interactive thresholding algorithm) and size V (full threshold) perimetry twice. Probability plots of 120 patients with glaucoma tested in the same way were computed. We compared the number of abnormal test locations in the 2 stimulus sizes; we then compared these results with those from size III StatPac software (Zeiss Humphrey Systems, Dublin, California) using 2-way repeated-measures analysis of variance.RESULTS:We found a similar number of abnormal test locations (P < or = .05) for the size III and size V testing conditions identified by the probability plots (no significant difference); there were significantly fewer abnormal locations using StatPac (size III) than from our size III database. When results were stratified by mean deviation, the mild visual loss group again did not show any significant differences between sizes III and V.CONCLUSIONS:Size V full-threshold testing gives a similar number of abnormal test locations in patients with glaucoma compared with the size III Swedish interactive thresholding algorithm standard test. Size V testing, with its greater dynamic range and lower variability, may be a viable alternative to size III testing in patients with glaucoma.

Objectives: To establish the associations between threshold estimates of 4 perimetric tests and to define and compare the tests' effective dynamic ranges.Methods: We examined 152 patients with glaucoma and 80 controls using standard automated perimetry (SAP) with stimulus size III, SAP with size V, and motion and matrix perimetry. We explored the intertest associations using principal-components analysis. We defined the effective dynamic range bottom using the frequency of 0-dB trials on retest. We defined the upper effective dynamic range as a value above which fewer than 0.5% of the values fall in the controls. We also calculated the number of discriminable steps from normal to the floor value of the perimeter.Results: The association between SAP III and V was approximately linear up to a sensitivity of about 20 dB on both tests and with motion and matrix perimetry up to about 25 dB from 0 dB. While the upper bounds were similar among the tests, size V SAP had a lower floor and more discriminable steps.Conclusions: The effective dynamic range of SAP III is substantially less than its physically tested limits. Size V stimuli have a greater effective dynamic range than size III by about 1 log unit and have about twice as many discriminable steps.