Abstract
Abstract: :
Purpose:Glaucoma is worldwide one of the leading causes of blindness. There is evidence that an autoimmune mechanism is involved in a subset of glaucoma patients. The aim of this study was to analyze the autoantibody repertoires in sera of glaucoma patients and healthy subjects. Methods:A total of 100 patients were divided into four groups: healthy volunteers without any ocular disorders (n=25), patients with primary open angle glaucoma (POAG, n=25), ocular hypertension (OHT, n=25), and normal tension glaucoma (NTG, n=25). All groups were matched for age and gender. The sera of patients were testest against western blots of retinal antigens. The autoantibody patterns were digitized and subsequently analyzed by multivariate statistical techniques and artificial neural networks. Results:All patients showed different, complex staining patterns of autoantibodies against retinal antigens. The number of peaks was increased in sera of POAG patients compared to all other groups. Including all peaks the analysis of discriminance revealed a statistical significant difference between the patterns of POAG compared to all other groups (P0.35) and OHT patients (P≷0.11) were statistically not different from those of controls. Conclusion:In this study, we could demonstrate a difference in the autoantibody patterns of glaucoma patients (POAG). However, the patterns were not different in normal tension glaucoma compared to controls. In contrast to other studies, we could not find hints for the involvement of autoantibodies in normal tension glaucoma.
Keywords: 327 autoimmune disease