Signs in the fundus oculi and arterial hypertension: unconventional assessment and significance.

Signs in the fundus oculi, long regarded as prognostic in hypertensive disease, have been shown to be subject to gross observer error and bias when assessed in conventional ways. The authors describe unconventional ways of assessing diminution of vascularity in a population sample of men aged 50 and also in a group of hospital patients.They show that a method simple enough to be learnt by a schoolboy in 20 minutes gives information that is more precise and less biased than data obtained by more conventional means. Standards can be prepared and the information is quantitative.The unconventional data are closely related to the level of hypertension. Some anomalies in the data, possible ways of improving them and ways of testing their relation to prognosis are discussed.