Gender and Glaucoma: Findings from a Hospital-based Study in Upper Egypt

Abstract

Background: There is an increasing evidence globally on the presence of gender bias either in the prevalence or the uptake of eye care services between men and women. Objective: To detect the difference between men and women in the frequency and both demographic and clinical characteristics of glaucoma patients. Patients and methods: The current study adopts a retrospective study design, a total number of 1000 subjects were recruited in the current study on a multi-center approach. The sample was recruited from Aswan University Hospital, Aswan Ophthalmology Hospital, Aswan Eye Center, and Baladi Foundation Eye Clinic. Results: Among 1000 investigated subjects, the mean (±SD) age was 42.3 (±22.6) years, 455 (45.5%) were male and 545 (54.5%) female. Disaggregating data per gender showed that there were a statistically significant difference in laterality (p=0.038), best corrected affected vision (p < 0.0001), uncontrolled intraocular pressure (IOP) (P<0.0001), and accounting enlarged corneal diameter (p=0.044). Moreover, there was a significant difference in the type of primary and secondary glaucoma (P<0.0001) and (P=0.007), respectively. Multivariate analysis confirmed such findings. Conclusion: Gender bias in glaucoma is a critical issue in terms of both prevalence and service utilization. Women are more affected than men because of gender specific risk factors that may include laterality, severity (as surrogated by surgical uptake) in addition to acquiring some glaucoma subtypes specifically such as congenital, juvenile, pseudo-exfoliation (PXF), uveitic, neovascular and pigmentary glaucoma. Disaggregation of glaucoma data by gender should be applied as a routine in prevention of low vision and blindness research.