The Effects of Macular Photocoagulation on Visual Field

Purpose: To evaluate visual field and nerve fiber layer thickness changes after Macular photocoagulation for treatment of diabetic macular edema. Setting: Rassoul Akram Hospital, Tehran, Iran. Material and method: Twenty six eyes with history of diabetes and clinically significant macular edema candidate for Macular photocoagulation were included in this prospective interventional case series. All patients underwent 10-2 and 24-2 Humphrey Visual Field Test with Swedish Interactive Thresholding Algorithm (SITA) standard strategy and also optic nerve and macular optical coherence tomography (OCT), before and 6 months after macular laser photocoagulation. Then visual field, peripapillary and macular nerve fiber layer thickness of each eye were compared before and after photocoagulation. Results: The mean age of patients was 57.60 ± 8.99 (range 33-73) years. There was no statistically significant change after photocoagulation compared to before the procedure regarding the mean deviation, pattern standard deviation and foveal threshold in visual field 10-2 and 24-2 tests except for pattern standard deviation in 10-2 test. Conclusion: Based on our results it seems that visual field is not affected by macular laser photocoagulation