Automatic (Octopus) and manual (Goldmann) perimetry in glaucoma.

Of 115 patients with chronic open angle glaucoma or suspected glaucoma 115 eyes were subjected to a visual field examination with the manual Goldmann perimeter and the automatic Octopus perimeter. In 84.4 +/- 8.9% the automaton detected more visual field loss, including 27.8 +/- 10.9% of the eyes where no visual field loss was found by the manual perimetry. Since some eyes with normal fields on manual perimetry and abnormal fields detected by automatic perimetry remained abnormal on retesting, it is assumed that scotomas found by automatic perimetry and not shown by manual perimetry constitute false-negative manual fields rather than false-positive automatic fields.