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Study links glaucoma medication use and presence, severity of ocular surface disease

Cornea. 2010; doi: 10.1097/ICO.0b013e3181c325b2.

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Patients undergoing medical treatment for glaucoma experienced a high rate of ocular surface disease, a study showed.

"[Ocular surface disease]is prevalent among medically treated patients with glaucoma," the study authors wrote. "The severity of [ocular surface disease] symptoms is positively correlated to the number of IOP-lowering medications used."

The prospective study included 630 patients diagnosed with primary open-angle glaucoma or ocular hypertension who were on a topical IOP-lowering medication regimen. Patients completed the ocular surface disease index, or OSDI. OSDI scores were calculated for each patient on a scale of 0 to 100, with 0 denoting no symptoms. Investigators also gathered data on medical history, demographics and concomitant medication use.

Of the 630 patients, 305 patients (48.4%) had OSDI scores indicating a presence of ocular surface disease; 134 patients (21.3%) had scores indicating mild symptoms, 84 patients (13.3%) had scores heralding moderate disease and 87 patients (13.8%) had scores signaling severe ocular surface disease.

OSDI scores were statistically significantly different between patients with and without previous diagnoses of dry eye syndrome (P = .0036), and between patients who used or did not use artificial tears during the study (P = .0046), the authors reported.

In addition, mean OSDI scores varied appreciably according to the number of topical IOP-lowering medications used; patients using multiple IOP-lowering medications had higher OSDI scores. Patients using a single medication had a mean OSDI score of 12.9. Patients using two medications had a mean OSDI score of 16.7, and those using three medications had a mean OSDI score of 19.4. The differences were statistically significant, the authors said.

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