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Introduction: The prevalence of visual impairment and ocular diseases changes over time. This measure can help general practitioners in anticipating common eye disorders that may require ophthalmological referrals to government hospitals. This study aimed to evaluate the prevalence of visual impairment and ocular diseases in an outpatient ophthalmology clinic in a public hospital and the types of investigations frequently conducted to diagnose these diseases. Methods: A cross-sectional prospective study was conducted over three weeks in the eye clinic of the University of Malaya Medical Centre. The electronic medical records of all patients who attended the outpatient clinic were assessed to collect data on sex, age, type of visit, visual acuity, ocular presentation, investigations conducted and diagnosis of eye diseases. Visual impairment and blindness were categorised as per the World Health Organization criteria. Results: Among 1002 patients, 327 had visual impairments (32.63%), and nine had blindness (0.9%). Cataracts were the most common ocular disease diagnosed (n=294, 29.74%), followed by glaucoma (n=123, 12.28%) and diabetic retinopathy (n=84, 8.38%). Optical coherence tomography was the most common investigation performed (n=272, 64.9%), followed by Humphrey visual field testing (n=53,12.6%). Conclusion: Untreated refractive error is the leading cause of visual impairment in children, while cataract, glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy are the main contributors to visual impairment and blindness in elderly individuals. Our study highlights the urgent need for general practitioners to recognise avoidable visual impairment in all age groups to help prevent blindness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: This study was done to determine the site of obstruction in lacrimal drainage system in Asian patients suffering from epiphora and to determine the transit time taken for the tracer material to reach the lacrimal sac and the nasal cavity. Methods: Dacryoscintigraphy was performed using radionuclide technetium-99m pertechnetate (99mTc) in 34 patients suffering from unilateral or bilateral epiphora and in 3 cases of post-operative dacryocystorhinostomy. The site of obstruction was noted during the dynamic scintigraphy procedure. The time taken for the tracer material to reach the lacrimal sac in all the eyes and the nasal cavity in the eyes with patency of nasolacrimal duct was determined. Results: Complete obstruction of nasolacrimal duct (NLD) was noted in all 22 unilateral cases. However, in 4 of the contralateral asymptomatic eyes in these patients complete obstruction of NLD was detected. Out of 12 bilateral cases, complete obstruction of NLD was noted in both eyes in 4 cases, and in one eye only in 8 cases. There was partial obstruction of NLD in the other eye in these 8 patients. The mean transit time taken for the tracer material to reach the lacrimal sac was 8 seconds (range 5 - 14 seconds) and to the nasal cavity was 6 minutes 20 seconds (range 2 minutes 16 seconds - 12 minutes). Conclusion: This non-invasive procedure helps in the diagnosis of partial obstruction of NLD which can be missed by syringing procedure. The time taken for the tears to drain into the nasal cavity can also be measured in eyes with patent nasolacrimal duct by this procedure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To compare the measurements of the optic cup diameter with B-scan sonography with fundus photography in patients with clear ocular media and to propose a solution for the clinical problem of determining the cup-disc ratio in eyes with opaque ocular media. Methods: We studied 122 patients (glaucoma patients and non-glaucoma controls) with clear ocular media. Measurements of optic cup diameters using Quantel 10 MHz B-scan sonography were compared with magnification-corrected measurements of the same area using Zeiss FF450 Plus fundus camera. Paired-sample t-test was used to compare the measurements. The correlation between measurements of optic cup diameters using the 2 methods was established. In addition, the optic disc diameters of both eyes were measured on fundus photographs and compared with each other. Results: There was no significant difference between the fundus photographic and sonographic measurements of optic cup diameters. There was no difference in the fundus photographic measurements of optic disc diameters between the 2 eyes. Conclusion: In an eye with opaque ocular media, the cup-disc ratio can be calculated by using the optic cup diameter of this eye with B-scan sonography and the optic disc diameter of the fellow eye with clear media measured by fundus photography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]