A preliminary study on the Ocular Blood Flow (OBF) of Hong Kong Chinese

The Ocular Blood Flow (OBF) Tonometer is an objective instrument to measure the Pulsatile Ocular Blood Flow (POBF), Pulse Amplitude (PA) and Pulse Rate (PR). It also provides the minimum intraocular pressure (IOPmin) simultaneously. This preliminary study applied the OBF Tonometer on 74 Hong Kong Chinese. They had their POBF measured followed by the Goldmann Applanation Tonometer (GAT). The OBF tonometer overestimates the IOP slightly. The average POBF result was smaller (661.2 mu l/min) than the previous studies. The effect of myopia of our sample (mean spherical equivalent -4.27 D) could be one of the contributing factors. Other factors include age and racial difference. Twenty-two subjects had their POBF measured again by the same practitioner and different practitioner for the reproducibility variation assessments. The POBF, PA and IOPmin were found to be repeatable between sessions. The POBF "norm" in Hong Kong Chinese needs to be established from a larger sample size and from a comparison on an age and refraction matched Caucasian group. (C) 1999 The College of Optometrists. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.