Abstract
Purpose: :
XFS has been reported in many countries and regions of the world, but it is considered rare in sub-Saharan Africa. It has been found in the Bantu of South Africa and in a few patients in the Gambia. However, there have been no reports of XFS from other nations of West Africa and was not found in a series of glaucoma patients in Ghana. The aim of this study was to estimate the prevalence of XFS and its association with ocular disease in patients attending the eye clinic of the University College Hospital, Ibadan, Nigeria.
Methods: :
A total of 448 consecutive new patients, aged 30-90 years, who attended the eye clinic of the University College Hospital between December 2009 and November 2010 were included. Each patient had a complete ophthalmic evaluation, including relevant history, visual acuity testing, slit-lamp examination, applanation tonometry, gonioscopy, and dilated fundus examination. Patients with exfoliative material on the anterior lens surface and/or pupillary margin in either or both eyes were considered to have XFS.
Results: :
All patients examined were from the southern part of Nigeria, 422(94.2%) were of the Yoruba tribe from southwestern Nigeria while 26 patients (5.8%) were from southeastern Nigeria. Of the 448 patients examined (mean age 58.5±13.8, 54.8% males), 12 (2.7%) had XFS, mean age was 65.6 ± 5.6 years with 8 males (66.7%). All patients with XFS were of the Yoruba tribe. All eyes with XFS had lenticular opacities. XFS was bilateral in 8 patients (66.7%). Of these cases, 7 patients (87.5%) had glaucoma and lenticular opacities in both eyes. One patient with unilateral XFS had bilateral glaucoma which was worse in the affected eye. On gonioscopy, one patient (8.3%) had anatomically narrow angles, while 91.7% had open angles (at least Shaffer grade 3).
Conclusions: :
This is the first report of the existence of XFS in Nigeria. Larger studies need to be done in this population to further investigate the disease.
Keywords: clinical (human) or epidemiologic studies: prevalence/incidence • anterior segment • intraocular lens