Purpose
We analyze the clinical and demographic features found in patients at the time of diagnosis of Primary Open Angle Glaucoma, and evaluated if the systemic risk factors are associated with glaucoma progression.
Methods
A descriptive, prospective, longitudinal and observational study. We included all the patients with diagnosis of Primay Open Angle Glaucoma (POAG) seen in the glaucoma service from july/2010 to january/2012. They have been studied with a complete ophthalmologic exploration included intraocular pressure and gonioscopy and we asked the necessary data for the study. We reported the visual fields (SITA-standard 24-2) results and corneal topography (orbscan II).
Results
We included 480 eyes of 240 patients with a mean age of 66.28 years, 67.08% were female and 32.91% were male. The age group that most patients had was 60-69 years. Most of the patients (35.41%) have an incomplete basic school. Family history of glaucoma was present in 27.5%. From the studied eyes 34.58% were myopic. Diabetes Mellitus was present in 26.66% and Systemic Arterial Hypertension in 36.25%. The 41.66% were asymptomatic patients and 40% related decrease of visual acuity. Ocular hypertension was present in 36 eyes (more than 21 mmHg). 167 eyes have a central corneal thickness less than 555 microns. Irregular lamina cribosa was the most frequent features (301 eyes) and 406 eyes have vertical cup-to-disc ratios greater than 0.7. Mild damage was present in 207 eyes (43.12%), moderate damage in 73 eyes (15.20%) and severe damage in 122 eyes (25.41%). The most frequent treatment used was prostaglandin analogue, indicated in 41.87% patients.
Conclusions
almost half of the patients go to our hospital in advanced stages of disease; the socioeconomic conditions and low standards of education in most of our patients are factors that may contribute to late diagnosis. Our findings may help to understand the most important features of the Mexican population associated with OAG and the information obtained can be left for further research.
Keywords: 464 clinical (human) or epidemiologic studies: risk factor assessment •
568 intraocular pressure