The Location of Earliest Glaucomatous Visual Field Defects Documented by Automatic Perimetry

A large material of eyes (2,500–3,000) with ocular hypertension, with or without established glaucoma in the fellow eye, were followed with automatic perimetry on the Competer perimeter for several years. Forty-five eyes showed a documented change from repeated normal fields to reproducible glaucomatous visual field loss. The location of the defective points in the first pathological field of each eye was registered, and a composite figure drawn. The resulting frequency distribution is similar to but not identical with that previously reported by Aulhorn and Karmeyer for their stage II defects found with manual perimetry. Thus, we were able to confirm their observation that in the very central field early glaucomatous visual field loss is more common in the superior than in the inferior half of the field, but we also found that early glaucomatous field loss in general is more common in the superior half of the field.