Familial glaucoma with sleep apnoea: a new syndrome?

Sleep apnoea was combined with glaucoma in five members of two generations of a family The three surviving members with heavy snoring and glaucoma with intraocular pressure maxima in the morning and a fourth with heavy snoring only all had clinical sleep apnoea. The more severe glaucoma, resistant to surgery and medication, correlated with a greater number and duration of episodes of sleep apnoea. In all those who had recordings made episodes of sleep apnoea tended to occur and be more prolonged in rapid-eye-movement sleep. Oxygen desaturation was greater in rapid-eye-movement sleep and could occur without evidence of impaired respiration. In the third generation of this family there is as yet no evidence of impaired respiration in sleep or of glaucoma.