Dr. Mehul Joshi, J15900
Cross sectional study was carried out by screening known patients of diabetes mellitus. Funduscpopy and FFA was done. Defects in colour vision were tested by using Ishihara plates and Farnsworth D-15 tests. Patients with any lenticular changes or abnormal pupillary reactions were excluded to rule out other causes of colour vision defects.
Most patients with angiographic diabetic maculopathy, showed acquired colour vision abnormalities, (61 out of 66 eyes) The colour vision defects detected were tritan defects diagnosed only on D-15. Most of these cases were normal on Ishihara, as tritan defects cannot be detected on Ishihara plates(2 out of 66 eyes were ishihara defective).There was no significant statistical difference found between the number of patients showing angiographic diabetic maculopathy and those showing tritanopia on D-15 test as marker of macular dysfunction.
D-15 being an inexpensive, easy to conduct test, can be done to screen for DME even by physicians.