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Jonathan Javitt, MD, MPH

Arch Ophthalmol. 1996;114(10):1251.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

AVAILABLE DATA on blindness in Asia suggest a prevalence of blinding eye disease of between 0.2% and 1.5%, with an average of 1.2%.¹ In their article on glaucoma in Mongolia, Foster and colleagues² report a 1.2% age-adjusted prevalence of blinding eye disease among a randomly selected population aged 40 years and older. This prevalence, using the World Health Organization's definition of blindness, which is a visual acuity of 20/400 or less, is several times higher than that reported for urban-dwelling white Americans (0.43%) or African Americans (1.02%).³

More striking than the overall prevalence of blindness are the findings that 1.4% of this population has primary angle-closure glaucoma and that 0.5% has primary open-angle glaucoma. In other words, among this ethnically homogeneous population, primary angle closure accounts for 3 of 4 cases of glaucoma. Moreover, 6.4% of the population was judged to have occludable angles on gonioscopic examination. . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
Washington, DC

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