Vascular factors may play role in normal-tension glaucoma

Small arterial diameters in the retinas of normal-tension glaucoma patients may indicate a vascular role in the pathogenesis of the disease, according to a study. The same study found that arterial diameters in the retina were not correlated with functional defects seen on automated perimetry.

A. Remky and colleagues investigated the retinal vessel diameters in 120 eyes with different stages and types of glaucoma and correlated the results with morphological and perimetric data from the same patients. The researchers scanned and digitized disc-centered photos of 57 eyes with ocular hypertension, 39 with primary open angle glaucoma, 28 with normal tension glaucoma and seven eyes with secondary glaucoma. They created gray-scale profiles through the vessels at one disc diameter from the disc.

Vessel diameters were significantly correlated with age and cup-to-disc ratio (P = .004). No correlation was found for global indices of Humphrey automated perimetry.

The group with normal tension glaucoma had significantly lower arterial diameters than each of the other patient groups, which did not differ from each other.

The study is published in Spektrum der Augenheilkunde.