Study finds impaired posterior ciliary artery blood flow in exfoliation syndrome, glaucoma

Patients with exfoliation syndrome or exfoliation glaucoma can have impaired blood flow in the long posterior ciliary artery, according to a study by researchers in Greece.

Efstathios T. Detorakis, MD, PhD, of the Democritus University of Thrace in Alexandroupolis, and colleagues measured blood flow in the long posterior ciliary artery (LPCA) and short posterior ciliary artery (SPCA) in 68 patients. The study included patients with primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG), exfoliation syndrome or exfoliation glaucoma. Patients without glaucoma or exfoliation syndrome acted as controls, according to the study.

The researchers found that patients with exfoliation syndrome and exfoliation glaucoma had significantly lower end diastolic velocities at the LPCA compared with controls and POAG patients. Patients with exfoliation glaucoma had a significantly lower end diastolic velocity but a significantly higher resistivity index at the SPCA compared with those with exfoliation syndrome. These differences were nonsignificant between the controls and POAG patients, however.

"The hemodynamic impairment at the LPCA in exfoliation syndrome and glaucoma supports an association between exfoliation and ischemic stress at the anterior ocular segment," the authors said.

The study is published in the April issue of Graefe's Archive for Clinical and Experimental Ophthalmology.