Abstract
Purpose: :
To study the epidemiology and investigate the association of the site of retinal vein occlusion (RVO) with different types of glaucoma.
Methods: :
We followed 48 patients presenting any type of RVO, who developed glaucoma during their evolution. Patients who had glaucoma previously and developed RVO later on were included as well. Mean follow-up was 4.2 years. At all visits, patients had a detailed ocular history, as well as thorough bilateral evaluation, including dynamic gonioscopy, central corneal thickness measurement, retinal nerve fiber layer measurement with OCT and automated visual field.
Results: :
48 RVOs -16 branch, 21 central and 11 hemicentral RVOs- were confirmed in 48 patients (22 males, 26 females, p=0.112). Ischemic occlusions seem to occur more frequently than non-ischemic occlusions, but the difference is not statistically significative (64.5% and 35.5% respectively, p=0.32). 16 patients had their RVOs occlusions before developing glaucoma later on, whereas 32 patients had glaucoma before. Many types of glaucoma were found in our series: 25 patients with primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG), 13 with primary angle-closure glaucoma (PACG) 3 of which had plateau iris, 4 with pseudo-exfoliation, 4 with normal-tension glaucoma (NTG), 2 with neovascular glaucoma (NVG) surprisingly for other reasons than the RVO.
Conclusions: :
Our study provides summary data on epidemiological findings and association between different types of RVO and different clinical forms of glaucoma. Only half of patients presenting with RVOs had POAG. Other clinical forms of glaucoma should be carefully looked for in this population in order to manage them appropriately.
Keywords: clinical (human) or epidemiologic studies: biostatistics/epidemiology methodology • optic nerve • retina