Long-term and short-term fluctuation in pattern discrimination perimetry.

We studied threshold fluctuation with the pattern discrimination perimeter in 24 healthy subjects at 56 locations within the central 30 degrees. This perimeter evaluates a subject's ability to discriminate a patterned stimulus measured by a percentage scale. We found an intraindividual fluctuation of 10.52% and an interindividual fluctuation of 8.78%. A statistically increased intraindividual, but not interindividual fluctuation was noted with increasing eccentricity from fixation (P less than .05, Bartlett's test). However, no correlation in fluctuation was noted with advancing age or increasing false-positive errors (P greater than .05, correlation coefficient). Also, no difference in fluctuation between superior or inferior hemifields was observed (P greater than .05, Student's t-test). The average threshold across all subjects was 54.3%, which provided an upper limit of normal, two standard deviations from the mean, of less than 80% for most locations. This study indicates that fluctuation should be considered when interpreting pattern discrimination fields, but that the extent of fluctuation generally allows for an adequate separation between normal and abnormal measurements.