This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Glaucoma risk assessment factors still need progress
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
SAN FRANCISCO — While studies have pinpointed key glaucoma risk assessment factors, the subject still needs further research, according to Kuldev Singh, MD.
Age, IOP and certain visual field parameters have been shown to be factors for glaucoma, but other potential risk factors such as race, have not been, Dr. Singh said here at the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery’s Glaucoma Day.
As an example, he compared two patients with similar backgrounds: Both patients were 40 years old, both had the same IOP and the same family history. One patient was white, the other black.
“Is that black patient more likely than the white patient to develop glaucoma?” he said. “And the answer is — we don’t know.”
Research such as the Ocular Hypertension Treatment Study proved that visual field and optic nerves are important factors that “define” the disease, Dr. Singh said. But glaucoma studies do not have as much data on what happens when those factors go untreated, he said.
“We have far less knowledge when it comes to detectable disease leading to visual impairment,” Dr. Singh said.
He said the reason might be because few subjects in glaucoma studies go blind, although that may be attributed to the treatment course they received while in the study.