Evaluation of Agreement Between Sweep Visual Evoked Potential Testing and Subjective Visual Acuity

Area of Science:

• Ophthalmology
• Neuroscience
• Clinical Electrophysiology

Background:

• Visual acuity (VA) is a key measure of visual function.
• Sweep visual evoked potential (sVEP) is an objective electrophysiological method to assess VA.
• The agreement between sVEP and traditional VA measurements requires validation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the agreement between visual acuity (VA) measured by sweep visual evoked potential (sVEP) and the Snellen chart.
• To investigate the influence of age and gender on the agreement between sVEP and Snellen VA.

Main Methods:

• Best corrected visual acuities were recorded using the Snellen chart.
• sVEP testing was performed following International Society for Clinical Electrophysiology of Vision (ISCEV) recommendations.
• Snellen VAs and sVEP measurements were analyzed using logMAR conversion and Bland-Altman analysis.

Main Results:

• A total of 49 subjects (mean age 53.5±17.3 years) participated.
• sVEP measurements and Snellen VAs showed significant disagreement (p=0.035) with proportional bias (p=0.0007).
• Disagreement increased with older age (p<0.001) and was significant in female subjects (p=0.006).

Conclusions:

• sVEP measurements and Snellen visual acuity values did not achieve statistical agreement.
• Factors such as cranial anatomy and endocrine differences may influence sVEP results.
• sVEP is not appropriate for direct substitution of Snellen chart visual acuity measurements.