Glaucoma and the dry eye syndrome

Abstract

During the past decade 2,436 patients with primary glaucoma were treated in the Budapest Eye Clinic. Symptoms and/or signs of dry eye syndrome were seen in 108 of them, i.e., 4.43%. In 42 cases these symptoms developed during conservative glaucoma treatment. Strikingly, there were more men among these patients than in the control group of sicca patients without glaucoma and there were less patients with generalized diseases related to keratoconjunctivitis sicca in the group of glaucoma patients with dry eyes. The Schirmer test was positive in a smaller percentage and corneal staining with bengal rose was more frequent in the group of sicca patients with glaucoma than in the group of sicca patients without glaucoma. Most of the glaucoma patients with dry eyes received pilocarpine dropps. The most noteworthy electron-microscopic feature of the bulbar conjunctiva was the reduction in frequency, height and width of the microplicae on the surface of the epithelial cells. The intercellular spaces were enlarged among the superficial cells and vacuoles appeared in their cytoplasm.