Original articleOne Eye or Two: A Comparison of Binocular and Monocular Low-Contrast Acuity Testing in Multiple Sclerosis
Section snippets
Methods
Patients and disease-free control subjects were enrolled as part of an ongoing prospective study of visual outcome measures in MS at the University of Pennsylvania, Johns Hopkins University, and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. MS was diagnosed by standard clinical and neuroimaging criteria.9
A history of 1 or more episodes of acute optic neuritis was determined for eyes of patients with MS by self-report and physician diagnosis, and confirmed by medical record
Results
Among 1007 patients with MS and 324 disease-free control participants, the mean age of the 2 groups was similar (43 ± 11 years for MS and 40 ± 11 years for controls, P = .19). Within the MS group, 46% of patients had a prior history of acute optic neuritis.
The mean VA and low-contrast acuity scores for each patient group are summarized in Table 2. All groups demonstrated evidence of binocular summation for each measure of visual function. Magnitudes of binocular summation were significantly
Discussion
Binocular high-contrast VA and low-contrast acuity measures are now frequently used for testing of visual function in MS clinical trials.1, 2, 3, 4, 13 Although binocular low-contrast acuity has been correlated with vision-related QoL,2 MRI lesion burden,3 retinal nerve fiber layer thickness measures,13, 14 and treatment effects4 in MS, it has been unclear whether binocular low-contrast acuity scores reflect those of the better eye, the worse eye, or a value in between the 2 eyes. Binocular
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Identification and treatment of the visual processing asymmetry in MS patients with optic neuritis: The Pulfrich phenomenon
2018, Journal of the Neurological SciencesCitation Excerpt :Subjects were assessed using the low contrast letter acuity charts (2.5% contrast; LCLA) after refractive error correction by a trained technician. The presence of binocular summation was indicated by an increased binocular acuity score of 7 or more letters with respect to the best monocular score on these charts; a threshold that has been already used for MS, and is consistent with a clinically meaningful and objective visual change [24–27]. Retinal structure was assessed through Spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT).
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