Glaucoma blindness risk in Caucasians revealed

It has long been acknowledged that glaucoma is more prevalent in Afro-Caribbean people aged 25 and over, but the study, published in last month's Ophthalmology, the journal of the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) claimed that the risk to Caucasians was significant, even after treatment. The authors of the paper studied the records of 295 people diagnosed with and treated for open-angle glaucoma between 1965 and 1980. AAO member Matthew Hattenhauer and his team found that at 20 years from diagnosis, the probability of blindness in at least one eye of those newly diagnosed and treated was 27 per cent. The estimate of blindness in both eyes was nine per cent at 20 years. However, in open-angle glaucoma these probabilities changed, with patients having a 22 per cent probability of blindness in both eyes and a 54 per cent probability of blindness in at least one eye at 20 years. In comparison, those with treated ocular hypertension had an estimated probability of blindness in both eyes of 4 per cent, and in at least one eye of 14 per cent. The study also found that gender was not a significant risk factor, however advancing age was strongly correlated with the progression of glaucoma to blindness in at least one eye.