Assessment of visual-field changes before and after focal photocoagulation for clinically significant diabetic macular edema

Visual fields were compared before and after focal photocoagulation for eyes with nonproliferative diabetic retinopathy and clinically significant diabetic macular edema. A total of 8 eyes was tested before treatment and 6-8 weeks after treatment using static automated visual fields (Octopus). The visual-field indices, mean defect (MD) and corrected loss variance, were employed as measures of retinal sensitivity. Our results show that focal photocoagulation (CLV) generally depressed sensitivity (increased MD) in the treated central 10° field, whereas in the untreated control region (10-30°) sensitivity generally remained stable. However, the whole-field indices indicated that overall the fields remained stable following focal photocoagulation treatment. These results suggest that although focal treatment produces local absolute visual-field defects, the effects are small relative to the global indices.