Comments on receiving the Kurokawa Prize (Medical Student branch) at the ACP Japan Chapter Annual Meeting 2019
Medical Student, Juntendo University School of Medicine
Saki Fukumoto
I am very honored to be awarded the Kurokawa Prize at the American College of Physicians (ACP) Japan Chapter Annual Meeting 2019 in Kyoto.
At the meeting, I made a presentation entitled “Unaware of glaucoma and traffic accidents: a proposal to detect visual field defects by CLOCK CHART”. I presented this issue, because I believe that it is clinically and socially significant for us to screen for glaucoma using CLOCK CHART, considering that this pathological condition is related to traffic accidents.
One of main research themes at the Department of Public Health, Juntendo University, is “health-related traffic accidents”, which include the effects of obstructive sleep apnea, hay fever and glaucoma. Among these, the prevalence of glaucoma is around 5% for those aged 40 years and over in Japan, whereas 90 percent of those affected are not aware of their disorder and remain untreated. Numerous previous studies reported the association between glaucoma and traffic accidents. Thus, there will be many latent patients with glaucoma who need appropriate diagnosis and treatment.
To address this, I collected 5 cases with glaucoma and examined their visual fields using both a Humphrey Field Analyzer and CLOCK CHART, the latter of which is a handy visual field screening tool. I found that the agreement rate between the Humphrey Field Analyzer and CLOCK CHART was substantially high. Therefore, it is concluded that screening visual fields using CLOCK CHART by general physicians would enhance the detection of glaucoma, leading to its early diagnosis and treatment, and reducing “health-related traffic accidents”.
I am also on a team investigating over 2000 commercial drivers. While still in progress, we are now analyzing the inter-relationships between traffic accidents and visual field defects detected by CLOCK CHART.
Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to Professor Tanigawa, Dr. Wada and all other teachers for their kind advice.