Interventional Glaucoma

Future healthcare reform is not a luxury. Rather, it is a necessity, especially when the performance and costs of healthcare in the United States are considered.

For many years, researchers have suspected and tried to prove a link between glaucoma and dementia, said Yvonne Ou, MD. Definitive answers, however, have been hard to come by. Glaucoma and dementia have several factors in common: both are neurodegenerative, chronic, and progressive diseases that are age-related and cause irreversible neuronal cell loss. They are both becoming a major public health concern as the U.S. population ages.

Value-based medicine analyses have indicated that glaucoma therapy has great patient benefits because it preserves their vision-which positively impacts their quality-of-life (QOL)-and it is cost effective with a high return on investment, according to Gary Brown, MD.

Glaucoma specialists can be advocates for their patients on a number of levels. On a daily basis, ophthalmologists help overcome barriers to treatment and offer solutions to patients for instilling medications, involving family members in their care, organizing services for patients, and providing educational materials, said Cynthia Mattox, MD, New England Eye Center, Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston.

Glaucoma is now in a post-Renaissance period with far superior medications, better lasers, and the potential for individualized treatments for patients, according to Thomas W. Samuelson, MD.

Although generic medications approved by the FDA are identical to the innovator in their active and inactive ingredients, prescribers must be cognizant about sources of problems associated with the use of ophthalmic generic drugs.

The prevalence of open-angle glaucoma varies by ethnicity. There are also ethnic-related variations in structural characteristics of normal eyes.

Bausch + Lomb has initiated its phase III clinical program of latanoprostene bunod (licensed by Nicox S.A.) for the reduction of IOP in glaucoma or ocular hypertension.