Purpose: To study the capabilities of a new perimetric strategy with the Octopus visual field analyzer: the Tendency Oriented Perimetry.
Methods: Tendency oriented perimetry (TOP) attempts to assess the visual field by using answers to questions to establish thresholds in the neighboring area. We evaluated 79 visual fields with the Octopus strategy using the program 32 and the TOP strategy split into the following groups: normal visual field or glaucoma suspects (52), moderately advanced glaucoma (16), advanced glaucoma (11). The following parameters were analyzed for the two strategies studied: examination time, MS (means sensitivity), MD (mean defect), LV (Loss Variance), short term fluctuation (RF) and the number of points with a deficit with different p values: p < 0.5; p < 1; p < 2; p < 5.
Results: TOP perimetry showed a significant reduction of exploration time: 11.87 minutes with the Octopus 32 vs 2.49 minutes with the TOP strategy (p < 0.001). There is no significant modification for the other parameters (MD, MS, RF) except for the LV (Loss Variance) for the global analysis and for each separate group.
Conclusion: The TOP strategy reduces examination time significantly but seems to be less accurate especially for the calculation of the depth of each scotoma in comparison with the standard Octopus 32 perimetry.