Colour vision in patients with chronic simple glaucoma and ocular hypertension

Normal subjects and patients with chronic simple glaucoma and ocular hypertension were examined with the Farnsworth-Munsell 100 hue test. Two groups of glaucoma patients were studied, one group having field defects in both eyes and the other being 'unilateral' in the sense that one eye had a full visual field. The stage of the disease was assessed by the amount of field loss or by the amount of optic disc damage as expressed by the vertical cup:disc ratio. Hue discrimination in eyes with glaucomatous field defects was worse than in eyes of normal subjects, but there was no clear indication of one range of colours being more affected than another. In glaucoma patients with field defects in both eyes the difference in error scores between the 2 eyes was greater than in normal subjects. There was a significant correlation between the degree of impairment of hue discrimination, expressed as the error score, and the amount of glaucomatous field loss. There was also a significant correlation between error score and the amount of glaucomatous damage to the optic disc, expressed by the vertical cup:disc ratio. Findings in a group of patients with ocular hypertension suggested that some of these were cases of incipient glaucoma.