World Sight Foundation Field Machine (WSFFM) Pilot

The current situation outside of large cities in lower-income countries, as described above, is suboptimal for the diagnosis of glaucoma. Doctors have no means of assessing visual fields, and as such may not be able to identify the condition until too advanced for any meaningful intervention (ie, to enable preservation of vision). Vision loss from glaucoma is irreversible. Understanding, through this pilot study, how well the World Sight Foundation Field Machine (WSFFM) works is an essential step towards trialling its use in lower-income countries. The justification for enabling this is to allow clinicians in the developing world to make more informed assessments of their glaucoma patient's status; this should translate in more timely treatments or referral for further investigation before further irreversible vision loss.

The WSFFM will be compared to the Humphrey Visual Field (HVF) analyser. The HVF analyser is the gold standard method of measuring visual fields; in our hospital eye service it is almost exclusively the method used, and as such the field technicians are particularly skilled in their use. The output data of the HVF enables easy quantification of level of field loss; by comparing the output from the WSFFM it would be possible to allow some form of quantification against "the standard" such that an idea of how well it works may be calculated.