Ocular hypertension: a comparative follow-up of black and white patients.

Abstract

Forty-four eyes in 25 black patients are compared with 92 eyes of 47 white patients in a population with ocular hypertension followed up for 1 to 12 years in a glaucoma clinic. The black patients present at a younger age than the whites and their mean initial intraocular pressure is significantly higher. The fact that more black ocular hypertensives developed glaucoma-8 eyes (I81 %) in the black population as compared with 5 eyes (5-4%) in the white population-is attributed to these two differences.

Racial Differences in Optic Nerve Head Parameters

“…The maximum displacement occurs at the center of the membrane, r = 0, and this yields the expression for D in equation 1 cribrosa, a function that is indepen¬ dent of the disc area. It is also possible that the vasculature of a larger optic disc is more susceptible to variations of intraocular pressure.…”

Differences in Visual Function and Optic Nerve Structure Between Healthy Eyes of Blacks and Whites

“…Although IOP is an important risk factor for POAG, the literature provides conflicting reports on race-specific differences in IOP. Some studies report elevated IOP in healthy blacks, 6,25,[35][36][37][38] whereas studies from the population-based Baltimore Eye Survey showed no differences. 39 However, lower IOP levels were reported for untreated blacks at their initial examination for POAG compared with untreated whites.…”

Comparative Human Aqueous Dynamics Study between Black and White Subjects with Glaucoma

“…Despite the number of patients with POAG being higher in the black affected group than in the white affected group, this disproportion between both racial groups would not have interfered in our analysis, since OHT and POAG patients have comparable aqueous dynamics. 24 Contrary to some studies, 3,13,14 we found black and white participants with POAG/OHT had similar IOP, but this is likely to be due to the bias in our sampling as patients with IOP higher than 35 mm Hg at the screening visit, according to our ethics committee recommendations, would have been excluded from the study, to avoid delaying the instauration of the medical treatment. Also, since IOP measured with the pneumatonometer 25,26 increases approximately 0.40 mm Hg for every 10-m increase in CCT, and the black participants had thinner corneas than the white participants had, the IOP could have been slightly underestimated.…”

“…12 The literature however, provides few insights into the potential racial differences in aqueous humor dynamics. Some studies on intraocular pressure (IOP) have reported higher IOP levels in blacks than in whites, 3,13,14 whereas others have found no differences 15 or even lower IOPs in black subjects. 16 Since the aqueous dynamics in this population have not been studied, we wanted to compare the baseline aqueous humor dynamics parameters in patients of African origin and white Caucasians with previously untreated POAG or ocular hypertension (OHT).…”