[Color perception disorders in therapeutic glycoside serum concentrations]

Vision deficiencies are dominant symptoms from digitalis intoxication. Twenty-nine and twenty-eight patients have been examined by the Farnsworth-Munsell-100-Hue-test under common maintenance therapy with digitoxin respectively digoxin or beta-acetyldigoxin. This was done to prove how glycosides may create colour vision disturbances even in "therapeutic" glycoside serum concentrations, and in which degree the lipophile digitoxin differs in its effect from the less lipophile digoxin. To exclude any congenital colour vision deficiencies the study was restricted to females. No definite difference in the total error score has been found among patients treated with digitoxin and digoxin. Our results and further new investigations have pointed out that colour vision in digitalized patients is influenced even under common maintenance therapy. It can also be stated that digitoxin does not influence colour vision other than digoxin.