This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.

Timolol may reduce post-phaco IOP increases in patients with glaucoma, exfoliation syndrome

Add topic to email alerts

Receive an email when new articles are posted on

Please provide your email address to receive an email when new articles are posted on .

Subscribe

Added to email alerts

You've successfully added to your alerts. You will receive an email when new content is published.

Click Here to Manage Email Alerts

You've successfully added to your alerts. You will receive an email when new content is published.

Click Here to Manage Email Alerts

Back to Healio

We were unable to process your request. Please try again later. If you continue to have this issue please contact customerservice@slackinc.com.

Back to Healio

Patients who have medically controlled glaucoma or exfoliation syndrome can experience IOP elevations within the first 24 hours after cataract surgery, a study by researchers in Israel shows. Administering timolol immediately postop can help prevent IOPs greater than 30 mm Hg, although lower IOP elevations can still occur, the authors noted.

Hani Levkovitch-Verbin, MD, and colleagues at Sheba Medical Center in Tel-Hashomer and at Tel-Aviv University prospectively evaluated IOP changes after uneventful cataract surgery in 122 patients. These patients had normal eyes, medically well-controlled glaucoma or exfoliation syndrome.

Investigators randomly assigned patients to receive one drop of either timolol maleate 0.5% or no treatment immediately after surgery, according to the study.

The researchers found patients with normal eyes had significantly lower IOPs compared with eyes with glaucoma and eyes with exfoliation syndrome (P < .001). Additionally, with the prophylactic use of timolol, normal eyes again had significantly lower IOPs compared with the other two groups (P < .001).

However, timolol significantly reduced postoperative IOPs over time in eyes with glaucoma but had no significant effect on either normal eyes or eyes with exfoliation syndrome, according to the study.

Among eyes with glaucoma, 10 eyes (55%) developed IOPs greater than 25 mm Hg and five eyes (28%) had IOPs greater than 30 mm Hg. Among eyes with exfoliation syndrome, five eyes (27%) had IOPs greater than 25 mm Hg and two eyes (11%) had IOPs greater than 30 mm Hg, according to the study.

None of the normal eyes had an increase in IOP above 25 mm Hg, the authors noted.

"Timolol maleate 0.5% eliminated IOP elevation [greater than] 30 mm Hg and reduced the frequency of IOP [greater than] 25 mm Hg in both groups to 14% in the glaucoma group and 5% in the exfoliation syndrome group," the authors said.

Most spikes in IOP occurred 4 hours postoperatively, but at 1 day postop, all groups had mean IOPs lower than 20 mm Hg, they noted.

The study is published in the January issue of Ophthalmology.