Analysis of different vision charts used for visual acuity assessment after retinal surgery.

BACKGROUND Different visual acuity chart can be targeted to evaluate the visual function of patients with different eye diseases. We conducted a comparative analysis of the digital logarithm of the minimum angle of resolution (LogMAR) vision chart and the standard logarithmic vision chart for the measurement of visual acuity after retinal detachment surgery. METHODS We used the digital LogMAR vision chart and the standard logarithmic vision chart to measure the visual acuity of 100 patients (100 eyes) who underwent retinal detachment surgery at our hospital using the LogMAR recording method and compared the differences between the mean measurements obtained by both methods for all patients and for different age groups. RESULTS When all of the patients were analyzed, the mean visual acuity differed between the digital LogMAR vision chart and the standard logarithmic vision chart by -0.07 LogMAR units. No significant difference was observed in the mean visual acuity between the two vision charts in the 10-20 year and 21-40 year age groups (P > 0.05), while a significant difference was observed in post-operative mean visual acuity between the two vision charts for patients aged 41-65 years (P < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS Both the digital LogMAR vision chart and the standard vision chart were effective and reliable for the measurement of visual acuity. The visual acuity measured by the standard vision chart was higher than that measured by the digital LogMAR vision chart. We recommend using the digital LogMAR vision chart as the preferred chart for measuring visual acuity after retinal detachment surgery.