New criteria to diagnose glaucoma
?Glaucoma is one of the oftalmológicas affections in which years have taken place more advances in the last?, it assured doctor Fabian Lerner, doctor ophtalmologist of the Santa Lucia hospital, that recently directed an advanced training courses on this disease, that constitutes the second cause of irreversible blindness.
?Not only there have been advances in his treatment and its diagnosis - it pointed Lerner-; it has even changed the concept of what he is glaucoma. Before it was considered that he was synonymous of ocular hypertension; today one knows that this one is a risk factor, but that does not mean necessarily that the person is going to have glaucoma.?
Recent studies have revealed that are people in whom the ocular hypertension is not translated in glaucoma and as well there are patients who get to suffer it in spite of having normal levels of intraocular pressure. Of there the importance of the annual oftalmológico control to detect the first signs of damage of the optical nerve that expose the development of this disease.
?Even so, he is very little frequent which people concur every year to a oftalmológico control - doctor Héctor Borel lamented itself, professor of ophtalmology of the The $andes University, of Chile, that participated in the mentioned course, organized by the Favaloro- University. For that reason half of the people with glaucoma does not know it.?
A new definition
?The present definition of glaucoma of the North American Academy of Ophtalmology does not include the ocular pressure; it defines as a multifactorial optical neuropatía - it said Lerner-. It costs to us to accustom us to this definition, because we learned to say that glaucoma was bound to the ocular hypertension and, in fact, the only possibility of present treatment happens through the ocular pressure.?
As much the therapeutic farmacológicas as the surgical ones aim to diminish the intraocular pressure, that is the result of an excessive amount of watery humor within the ocular globe - the watery humor is liquid a transparent one that nourishes the internal structures of the eye and contributes to maintain its form.
Anyway, the excessive pressure that exerts east liquid continues being considered one of the main factors of risk for glaucoma. ?A recent study demonstrated that the patients with ocular pressure very elevated (of more than 26 millimeters of mercury) have greater risk than those than have high pressure not as much but (between 22 and 25)?, Lerner commented.
Other factors of risk are the familiar antecedents of glaucoma, the prolonged the steroid myopia, diabetes, use and cortisone, and the age: ?As of the forty years the risk is much greater; for that reason it is recommended to make an annual oftalmológica consultation from that age?, affirmed doctor Borel.
?Once detected the disease, it is possible to delay his advance in most of the cases - it said doctor Lerner-. New surgical techniques exist and new drugs to treat glaucoma; as far as medicines, a great advance is that these no longer require several daily doses, but a single one.? Nevertheless, the greater obstacle for the diagnosis is nourished of the fact that the symptoms usually appear very delayed, after ten or fifteen years of evolution of the disease, when the patient already has lost more of 85% of his field of view.
?Another problem raises the fact that this disease is asymmetric - affirmed Borel-. An eye begins to lose vision before the other, and often the patient does not realize until the ophtalmologist covers the other eye to him. Until that point the incapacity arrives from the patient to notice it.?
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