Glaucoma News Archive (2007)

...continued from Current Glaucoma News

FDA Approves Combigan for Lowering Eye Pressure

IRVINE, Calif., November 2007 — Allergan has received FDA approval for Combigan, a combination of two eye drops (brimonidine tartrate/timolol maleate ophthalmic solution) that helps lower and control internal eye pressure to prevent damage from glaucoma.

Allergan officials said Combigan will be available for physicians to prescribe during the fourth quarter of 2007.

---

Tocopherol May Protect Eye Against Glaucoma Damage

ISTANBUL, September 2007 — Turkish researchers have reported study results showing highly significant protective effects of the antioxidant, tocopherol, which appears to slow glaucoma-related damage to nerve cells in the eye's retina.

"Tocopherol deserves attention beyond its antioxidant properties for protecting the retina from glaucomatous damage," researchers concluded in a study reported in the September issue of the European Journal of Ophthalmology.

Tocopherol is found in vitamin E. One form, alpha-tocopherol, is common in foods such as avocados, peanuts and wheat germ oil.

---

Common Link Found Between Glaucoma, Alzheimer's

LONDON, August 2007 — London researchers say they have identified a common cause of glaucoma eye disease and Alzheimer's, both of which cause nerve cell degeneration.

"We've seen for the first time that there is a clear link between what causes Alzheimer's disease and one of the basic mechanisms behind glaucoma," said study leader and glaucoma specialist Francesca Cordeiro, MD, of University College London and Western Eye Hospital. "However, this doesn't mean that everyone with Alzheimer's will develop glaucoma or vice versa. Glaucoma has a number of risk factors."

Study results demonstrate that the build-up of a protein known as beta-amyloid, causing brain lesions in individuals with Alzheimer's, also can lead to nerve cell death in the eye's retina, where vision processing occurs.

Typically, high intraocular pressure (IOP) in glaucoma is associated with optic nerve damage and vision loss in the "edges" of the visual field. But some people with glaucoma can have well controlled IOP and still develop vision loss.

Researchers say the link between glaucoma and Alzheimer's can be explained partly because the eye's retina is an extension of the brain.

Findings, reported in August in the online version of the U.S. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could have implications for use of Alzheimer's medications in treating glaucoma. Also, researchers say that new ways of visualizing retinal nerve cell damage, used during the study, also may represent a diagnostic tool for detecting Alzheimer's.

---

Anecortave Acetate Demonstrates Effectiveness as Glaucoma Drug

SINGAPORE, July 2007 — One injection of Alcon's anecortave acetate experimental glaucoma drug in many cases controlled intraocular pressure (IOP) for at least three months, according to study results reported at the World Glaucoma Congress in Singapore.

Experimental results demonstrated that about half of individuals with glaucoma who had the highest dose (30 mg) injected into the eye maintained stable IOP.

"The results of this first controlled clinical study of anecortave acetate for glaucoma are encouraging because they show that with one injection the drug works for at least three months in a significant number of glaucoma patients to lower pressure by clinically relevant amounts," said Scott Krueger, PhD, Alcon's vice president of research and development (pharmaceuticals).

Krueger said additional clinical studies will be developed with the goal of filing for a new drug application with the FDA in 2009.

---

Glaucoma Treatment Not Provided for Many Older Americans

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., May 2007 — Even though glaucoma may progress to blindness, researchers say almost one-third of older Americans diagnosed with this serious eye disease do not receive treatment.

"We need to do a better job of educating patients and their physicians, as well as health policymakers and insurance-industry leaders, of the benefits of consistent glaucoma therapy," said glaucoma researcher Joshua D. Stein, M.D, of Duke University in Durham, N.C. "If we do not learn this lesson, glaucoma will continue to be a leading cause of blindness in older populations."

Stein presented study results detailing the lack of treatment among older people diagnosed with primary open-angle glaucoma at the 2007 Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) annual meeting.

---

Glaucoma Could Increase Risk of Collisions and Falls

HALIFAX, Canada, March 2007 — People with glaucoma were about six times more likely to have been involved in a motor vehicle collision within the past five years than a control group, according to study results published in the March 2007 issue of Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences.

Dalhousie University researchers who studied 48 people with glaucoma also found that drivers with the eye disease were more likely to be at fault when a collision did occur.

Researchers also found that people with glaucoma were three times more likely than a control group to have experienced a fall within the previous 12 months.

Glaucoma can damage the eye's optic nerve, which may lead to narrowing of the visual field or "tunnel vision."

---

Boston Researchers Suggest New Treatment Targets for Glaucoma

BOSTON, January 2007 — New understanding about how glaucoma causes blindness has led researchers at Children's Hospital Boston and the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary to suggest treatments aimed at certain targets, such as a type of inflammatory molecule known as tumor necrosis factor-alpha or TNF-alpha.

Researchers say they have found an association between elevated inner eye pressure (intraocular pressure) often caused by glaucoma and an increase in TNF-alpha, which sets off an immune response in the eye that damages cells within the optic nerve.

A healthy optic nerve is crucial for good vision, because it transmits visual signals from the eye to the brain for interpretation.

"In the clinic, lowering intraocular pressure is a reliable treatment for glaucoma, but sometimes it is hard to lower the pressure even after eyedrop treatment or surgery," researcher Toru Nakazawa, who now is at Japan's Tohoku University, said in a news release. "Here, we show that blocking TNF-alpha function may have a benefit as a neuroprotective treatment."

Results of the Boston study were published in the online edition of Journal of Neuroscience in early December.

Back to current glaucoma news.

[Page updated December 2008]