Potential role of visually evoked potential and electroretinography

Glaucoma is a widely distributed progressive optic neuropathy characterized by progressive damage and loss of retinal ganglion cells of the retina and optic nerve, optic disc excavation increasing and usually, but not always, high intraocular pressure, which eventually results in gradual changes in the visual field. In our study, we tried to determine the potential role and place of electrophysiological researches (PERG and VEP) in the early detection of glaucoma optic neuropathy, comparing the electrophysiological parameters (P100 and A) and numeric parameters in ophthalmic patients studied. The results obtained in our study show that the application of PERG methods detects early damage to the retinal ganglion cells, whereas the same changes were not observed by VEP analysis, suggesting a potential role of predictive PERG analysis in the early diagnosis of pre-perimetric glaucoma.