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Letters
Dec 2011

The 10-Year Incidence of Glaucoma Among Patients With Treated and Untreated Ocular Hypertension

Author Affiliations

Author Affiliations: Departments of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences (Drs Gordon and Kass and Ms Beiser) and Biostatistics (Dr Gao and Mr Miller), Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, Missouri.

Arch Ophthalmol. 2011;129(12):1630-1631. doi:10.1001/archophthalmol.2011.337

The Ocular Hypertension Treatment Study has shown that medical treatment of ocular hypertension (OHT) reduces the incidence of primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG) at 5 years by more than 50%.1 The greatest absolute reduction in incidence occurs among those at highest risk based on baseline age, intraocular pressure, central corneal thickness, vertical cup-disc ratio, and pattern standard deviation. In clinical practice, most patients with OHT are followed up for longer than 5 years.1-3 To help clinicians and patients make decisions about the benefit of early medical treatment and the frequency of examinations, we have calculated the 10-year incidence of POAG under 2 scenarios: treated, ie, medical treatment for 10 years, and untreated, ie, no medical treatment for 10 years.

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