Advances in glaucoma therapeutics.

Glaucoma is a major cause of irreversible blindness in the world. The prevalence of glaucomatous loss in vision will continue to grow as our populations age. Ocular hypertension is a major risk factor for the development of glaucoma and current glaucoma therapy is directed at lowering intraocular pressure. Several new ocular hypotensive agents have been introduced in the past several years providing a variety of treatment options. In addition, various classes of neuroprotective agents demonstrating activity in a wide variety of animal models have been proposed as potential new glaucoma therapeutics. Although these approaches will slow the progression of vision loss, they do not directly intervene in the disease process(es). Advances have been made attempting to understand the pathogenic pathways involved in glaucomatous damage to the eye and in methods to clinically measure glaucoma damage. An increased understanding of the pathophysiology of glaucoma will lead to the development of new therapeutic agents that intervene and perhaps even reverse glaucomatous damage to the eye. There also is a need to develop new methods to clinically measure glaucoma damage because, currently, considerable damage occurs before glaucoma is diagnosed and glaucoma remains underdiagnosed in the general population.