ORIGINAL ARTICLES   

Minerva Oftalmologica 2014 March;56(1):9-20

Copyright © 2014 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: Italian

Systemic drug therapies and primary angle closure glaucoma: our experience and literature review

Monteu F., Actis A. G., Buschini E., Rolle T.

Department of Clinical Physiopathology Ophthalmic Section University of Turin, Eye Clinic

AIM: Aim of our retrospective, observational study was to describe features of a population sample affected by primary angle closure glaucoma (PACG) and to value the association with systemic drug concomitant therapies with a possible triggering role.
METHODS: We included 83 patients, in the care of Ophthalmological Clinic of the Torino University from 2005 to 2012. We evaluated main epidemiological and clinical features of treated patients and of Torino’s province resident population, studying age, sex, race, ocular and systemic diseases and their therapies, and especially the prescription relative frequency of drugs with adrenergic agonist effect, non-catecholamine adrenergic, cholinergic, anticholinergic effect, anticholinergic side effects, sulfa-based drugs. Then, we deduced average, mode, median and standard deviation of every parameter characterizing the two populations, we evaluated the homogeneity between them, and we compared main drug concerned categories using odds ratio statistics.
RESULTS: From emerged results, it results a statistically significant relation of association between PACG triggering and the following drugs: antidepressants (OR 1.93), antipsychotics (OR 1.38), antiH2 (OR 21), beta2 agonists (OR 93.35), tiazidics (OR 19.84), sulfa-based drugs (OR 35.13), antiparkinson (OR 2.73).
CONCLUSION: This study confirms the existence of a direct connection between specific drug categories and PACG development. The main problem is to recognise at risk eyes in patients with narrow iridocorneal angle before prescribing systemic drugs, of common use in numerous specialties.