RESUMEN
AIM: To evaluate the performance of dominant eye (DE) for color vision discrimination ability among the medical students with normal color vision. METHODS: Total of 50 students studying at Baskent University Faculty of Medicine, including 31 males (62%) and 19 females (38%), with visual acuity of 20/20 and without congenital color vision deficiency (CCVD) evaluated by Ishihara pseudoisochromatic plate test (IPPT) were recruited for this prospective comparative study upon their voluntary participation. DE was determined by the Gündogan Method. The color discrimination ability was examined with the Farnsworth-Munsell 100 hue (FM100) test. Test was applied by two days interval to all subjects for the three times while two eyes (TE), right eye (RE) and left eye (LE) were seeing for detecting red-green (r/g), blue-yellow (b/y) local color spectral regions error scores. The error scores were evaluated for both in DE and non-dominant (NDE). P values below 0.05 were considered to be statistically significant. RESULTS: The students aged 21.18±2.52 years (mean±SD). Without sex difference the RE and the LE dominancy were found 22 (44%) and 28 (56%) respectively and FM 100 test total error scores of DE in both r/g-b/y regions were found without gender difference 24.12±14.70, 34.68±18.95, respectively. For the NDE in both, r/g-b/y regions error scores without gender difference were 32.20±19.21, 36.24±17.56, respectively. The difference of total error scores between the DE and NDE was found as 58.80±29.92, 68.44±31.46. The statistical differences among the DE and the NDE in r/g local region and total error scores were found significant in both genders (P<0.05, P<0.001). CONCLUSION: The color vision discrimination performance ability was found prominent for DE. This superiority was attributed to higher sensitivity of the r/g local color spectral region. We conclude that DE has priority in r/g color spectral region, probably including inhibition of NDE.