This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Reply to article  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in this journal  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Alfred Sommer, MD, MHS; James M. Tielsch, PhD
Baltimore, Md

Arch Ophthalmol. 1996;114(2):235.

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

We read with interest the report of the Barbados Eye Study¹ in which Leske and associates reportedly failed to identify blood pressure (BP) as a "risk factor" for primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG). While there were many differences between their study and the Baltimore Eye Survey (which included 2500 African-Americans aged 40 years and older), the Baltimore study was able to identify a complex, biologically plausible relationship between BP and the risk of POAG.²

As we had anticipated, two interesting results came from our analyses. There was moderate evidence to suggest that elevated BP was protective at younger ages, presumably before significant vascular narrowing had occurred. Elevated BP was deleterious in the older age group, perhaps because vascular stenosis from chronic hypertension had reduced perfusion despite an elevated pressure head. There was also a marked relationship between perfusion pressure (BP minus intraocular pressure[IOP]) and the risk of POAG that . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?