BMJ  2004;328:97-99 (10 January), doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7431.97

Clinical review

ABC of Eyes

Glaucoma—1: Diagnosis

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Introduction

The glaucomas are a range of disorders with a characteristic type of optic nerve damage. The glaucomas are the second commonest cause of blindness in the world, and the commonest cause of irreversible blindness. The most effective way of preventing this damage is to lower the intraocular pressure.

Normally, the ciliary body secretes aqueous, which flows into the posterior chamber and through the pupil into the anterior chamber. It leaves the eye through the trabecular meshwork, flowing into Schlemm's canal and into episcleral veins. The flow and drainage can be obstructed in several ways.

Symptoms and signs

The intraocular pressure is determined by the balance between aqueous production inside the eye and aqueous drainage out of the eye through the trabecular meshwork. Each normal eye makes about 2 µl of aqueous a minute—that is, about 70 l during the course of a lifetime. Normal intraocular . . . [Full text of this article]

-->-->-->

Primary open angle glaucoma

-->-->

Acute angle closure glaucoma

-->-->

Other types of glaucoma

-->
CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?

Relevant Article

Advanced glaucomatous visual loss and oral steroids

Vikas Chadha, Iain Cruickshank, Robert Swingler, and Roshini Sanders
BMJ 2008 337: a670. [Extract] [Full Text]

This article has been cited by other articles:

• Breusegem, C., Fieuws, S., Stalmans, I., Zeyen, T. (2008). Variability of the Standard Reference Height and Its Influence on the Stereometric Parameters of the Heidelberg Retina Tomograph 3. IOVS 49: 4881-4885 [Abstract] [Full text]  
• Waller, E. A., Bendel, R. E., Kaplan, J. (2008). Sleep Disorders and the Eye. Mayo Clin Proc. 83: 1251-1261 [Abstract] [Full text]  
• Harding, E. (2008). Sudden visual loss. InnovAiT 1: 699-705 [Abstract] [Full text]  
• Chadha, V., Cruickshank, I., Swingler, R., Sanders, R. (2008). Advanced glaucomatous visual loss and oral steroids. BMJ 337: a670-a670 [Full text]  
• Van Agtmael, T., Schlotzer-Schrehardt, U., McKie, L., Brownstein, D. G., Lee, A. W., Cross, S. H., Sado, Y., Mullins, J. J., Poschl, E., Jackson, I. J. (2005). Dominant mutations of Col4a1 result in basement membrane defects which lead to anterior segment dysgenesis and glomerulopathy. Hum Mol Genet 14: 3161-3168 [Abstract] [Full text]  

Online poll

Find out more >>