Lasers as Effective as Drugs in Treating Glaucoma, Study Finds
A precise series of laser burns is as effective as liquid drops in controlling glaucoma, a vision-robbing eye disease that affects about 3 million Americans, a study indicates.
In a study to be published today in the American Journal of Ophthalmology, researchers followed the progress of more than 200 patients for seven years and found there was little difference in the glaucoma-afflicted eyes treated with lasers and those treated with drops.
“By some interpretation, the laser treatment was slightly better than the drops,” said Dr. Jacob Wilensky of the University of Illinois Eye and Ear Infirmary, one of the specialists who conducted the study on patients at eight medical centers nationwide.
All of the patients in the study were diagnosed with early-stage, open-angle glaucoma, the most common form of the disease. One eye of each patient received laser therapy, while the other eye was treated with medication administered daily as drops.
After seven years, the researchers assessed the health of each eye, checking such things as vision sharpness, pressure inside the eye ball and the condition of the optic nerve.
“Our results suggest that initial treatment with laser is at least as effective as initial treatment with eyedrops,” Dr. Hugh Beckman of the Sinai Hospital in Detroit, and the chairman of the study, said in a statement.
Wilensky said that about an equal number of the laser-treated and medication-treated eyes required additional medication after two years.
Glaucoma is a disorder in which, for reasons unknown, fluids in the eye stop draining properly, causing pressure to build in the eyeball. Left unrelieved, the pressure can damage the optic nerve, causing gradual loss of sight. The condition is one of the most common causes of blindness.
The disease is most commonly treated with eyedrops of drugs such timolol that aids fluid drainage. In some patients, these drops can cause headaches or affect the heartbeat.
In the laser treatment, doctors use 10th-of-a-second bursts from an argon laser to create extremely small burns around the edge of the iris, the circular, colored part of the eye.
