Glaucomatous Visual Field Loss May Not Lead to Total Blindness

July’s Ophthalmology
A retrospective chart review study by Much et al. demonstrated that the prognosis for treated patients with end-stage glaucoma may be better than previously thought. This research focused on a predominantly African-American population with end-stage glaucomatous visual field loss defined by a central island of vision of 10 degrees in radius or less.
Investigators included 84 eyes of 64 patients (78 percent African-American) with an average follow-up of 8.34 ± 3.1 years. They found that 14 eyes lost more than three lines of visual acuity with eight of these eyes progressing to a visual acuity of 20/200 or worse. Few eyes in the study experienced a complete blackout of their central visual field due to glaucoma.
The authors conclude that progression to blindness is not the norm in treated patients with end-stage glaucomatous visual field loss, and they encourage ophthalmologists to share these relatively optimistic findings with patients