COLOR VISION DEFECTS AMONG LEPROSY PATIENTS WITH NORMAL SPATIAL LUMINANCE CONTRAST SENSITIVITY

Abstract

Purpose: To evaluate the achromatic and chromatic psychophysical performance in leprosy patients with normal or quasi-normal visual acuity.

Methods: Thirty-one leprosy patients (59 eyes), 19 males and 40 females, 31.28 ± 10.02 years-old ,were compared to a control group composed by twenty-eight subjects (56 eyes), 20 males and 36 females, 46.29 ± 11.81 years-old. One-way and two-way ANOVA were used to compare the psychophysical data estimated from patients and controls. All the procedures in the present study were approved by the UNIFAP Ethical Committee.

Results: There was statistical difference in the Farnsworth - Munsell test between patients and control subjects. The patients had higher number of errors compared to the controls (p < 0.01) with no preference for any color axes. Leprosy patients had significant lower spatial luminance contrast sensitivity than controls at 0.5 cpd. There was no difference between the psychophysical performance among pauci and multibacillar patients; although it seems that multibacilar patients tend to show weaker performance in both tests.

Conclusions: Leprosy patients showed impaired color vision, impaired low spatial frequency contrast sensitivity, and normal contrast sensitivity in most of the spatial frequency range.

Keywords: 759 visual impairment: neuro-ophthalmological disease