The flashlight test and van Herick's test are poor predictors for occludable angles.
OBJECTIVE
To determine the reliability and validity of the flashlight test and van Herick's test in detecting occludable anterior chamber angles.


METHODS
The flashlight test, van Herick's test and gonioscopy were performed independently by two observers on 96 consecutive new patients in our outpatient clinic. Interobserver agreement was determined using the weighted Kappa statistic. Using the glaucoma specialist's assessment of occludability of the angle (assessed by gonioscopy) as a gold standard, the sensitivities and specificities of the two tests were calculated.


RESULTS
All three tests showed good agreement (Kappa more than 0.75). The sensitivity and specificity on the flashlight test were 45.5% and 82.7% respectively. For the van Herick's test they were 61.9% and 89.3%.


CONCLUSIONS
The flashlight test and van Herick's test are of limited use as screening tests for occludable angles.
Thomas
R
R
Schell Eye Hospital, Department of Ophthalmology, Christian Medical College, Vellore, India.
George
T
T
Braganza
A
A
Muliyil
J
J
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000867:Anterior Chamber / Q000473:pathology*; D005260:Female; D015812:Glaucoma, Angle-Closure / Q000175:diagnosis*; D006068:Gonioscopy; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015588:Observer Variation; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D015351:Vision Screening; D014787:Vision Tests / Q000379:methods*