Glaucoma case detection

Abstract

In Dalby more than 1,000 residents have been followed for a decade (1977-1987) with periodic comprehensive eye examinations including family history, ophthalmoscopy, slit-lamp examination, applanation tonometry, and computerized perimetry. The large majority were followed at long intervals (2.75 and 5.65 years). Ophthalmoscopy and tonometry were used to select a minor part of the population to be followed at shorter intervals. In this way 16 out of 24 manifest glaucomas detected after the first survey were found among patients followed at shorter intervals. A closer look at the data suggested that the selection could have been further improved if the slit-lamp examination and the family history had been used in much the same way as ophthalmoscopy and tonometry. On this basis new criteria to select persons said to have 'presumptive glaucoma' are proposed.