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Open-angle glaucoma patients not receiving recommended visual field tests

Patients with chronic open-angle glaucoma are not receiving the number of visual field tests recommended by the European Glaucoma Society guidelines, according to a study.

The multi-center, cross-sectional review included 104 patients with chronic open-angle glaucoma. The authors compared the number of visual field tests performed prior to the start of the study and during the course of the 2-year follow-up period with the number of tests recommended by the European Glaucoma Society’s guidelines for newly diagnosed patients.

The number of visual field tests per year was 0.7 on the average 7.2 years of follow-up, with a median number of four tests in the first year and two tests in the second year.

To increase the number of visual field tests to the recommended amount, it would require a threefold increase of visual field tests in the first 2 years of patients diagnosed with chronic open-angle glaucoma, the authors said.

Disclosure: This work was funded by the U.K. National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Health Services and Delivery Research Programme. See the study for a full list of all authors’ relevant financial disclosures.