Assessment of the Medmont C100 test for colour vision screening of male Saudi Arabians

Abdullah Z Alotaibi,O Matthew Oriowo,Emmanuel A Ikpotokin

doi:10.4102/aveh.v70i1.94

Abstract

Purpose: To assess the Medmont C100 test as a colour vision screening tool. Methods: One hundred and seventeen young male adults were screened with the Medmont C100, Ishihara plates, and the screening mode of the Oculus Anomaloscope tests. All subjects were tested under constant room illumination, namely that of a day light fluorescent lamp at 200 lux. Inclusion criteria were visual acuities (VA) of 20/20 or better with or without correction and absence of known ocular pathologies.Aided and unaided visual acuities were measured with the Snellen VA chart. Results: Five out of the117 subjects, were found to have red-green colour vision deficiency (CVD) with Ishihara and anomaloscope tests indicating a 4.7% CVD prevalence, while the Medmont C100 test yielded 33 cases of red-green deficiency indicating CVD prevalence of 28%. With the Ishihara test, all five subjects were identified as deutans, while the anomaloscope revealed three as deutans and two as protans, and the Medmont C100 test identified all 33 cases as protans. Conclusion: The Medmont C100 test yielded significantly higher prevalence of protan CVD compared with the Ishihara platesand Anomaloscope tests. These findings suggest that caution should be taken when using Medmont C100 test for colour vision screening as it tends togive more false positive results with bias for protans. (S Afr Optom 2011 70(1) 14-20)

Highlights

Colour vision deficiency (CVD) may present as a functional disorder of vision in everyday life, and CVD is a public health concern
The motivation for the present study was based on the premise that the Medmont C100 colour vision system can be used as an additional or alternative test to Ishihara colour plates for quick colour vision screening
Various authors[3, 6] have explained that many CV tests are not suitable for screening, the Medmont C100 test has been recommended for clinical colour vision screening[1]

Summary

Introduction

Colour vision deficiency (CVD) may present as a functional disorder of vision in everyday life, and CVD is a public health concern. The congenital form is known to affect almost 8% of males and 0.5% of females in Caucasian societies[1,2,3,4]. Those who have CVD will be able to adapt better and make more informed career choices if they know about their CVD condition earlier. The literature indicates that one fifth to one third of adults with abnormal colour vision are not aware of their CVD1-4. This may be due to the fact that colour vision screening is not conducted routinely in eye

Methods

Results

Conclusion