Evaluation of two treatment outcome prediction models for restoration of visual fields in patients with postchiasmatic visual pathway lesions

Visual functions of patients with visual field defects after acquired brain injury affecting the primary visual pathway can be improved by means of vision restoration training. Since the extent of the restored visual field varies between patients, the prediction of treatment outcome and its visualization may help patients to decide for or against participating in therapies aimed at vision restoration. For this purpose, two treatment outcome prediction models were established based on either self-organizing maps (SOMs) or categorical regression (CR) to predict visual field change after intervention by several features that were hypothesized to be associated with vision restoration. Prediction was calculated for visual field changes recorded with High Resolution Perimetry (HRP). Both models revealed a similar predictive quality with the CR model being slightly more beneficial. Predictive quality of the SOM model improved when using only a small number of features that exhibited a higher association with treatment outcome than the remaining features, i.e. neighborhood activity and homogeneity within the surrounding 5° visual field of a given position, together with its residual function and distance to the scotoma border. Although both models serve their purpose, these were not able to outperform a primitive prediction rule that attests the importance of areas of residual vision, i.e. regions with partial visual field function, for vision restoration.