Importance of pathological intraocular light scatter for visual disability.

For healthy eyes intraocular light scatter was investigated several decades ago. For pathological eyes, however, little is known. As clinical test several techniques have been proposed but none has gained general acceptance. A disadvantage of these tests was that quantities were estimated that related only indirectly to the amount of light scatter. We propose a method that gives a direct estimate of the light scatter. We studied patients with cataract, corneal dystrophy, iris and fundus hypopigmentation, etc. A remarkable finding was that visual acuity correlates rather weakly with the amount of scatter. Since, however, the amount of scatter causes a considerable loss of visual function, the results show that for these patients the visual acuity test gives a rather limited impression of their visual handicap. More attention to the problems associated with intraocular light scatter is needed.