Primary viscocanalostomy versus trabeculectomy in white patients with open-angle glaucoma: A randomized clinical trial
Presented in part at the XIII Annual Meeting of Deutschsprachige Gesellschaft für Intraokularlinsen-Implantation und Refraktive Chirurgie, Frankfurt/Main, Germany, March 1999.
Received 5 January 2000; accepted 29 August 2000.
Abstract
Purpose
To compare viscocanalostomy, a nonpenetrating procedure for glaucoma treatment, with trabeculectomy.
Design
Randomized controlled trial.
Participants
Twenty white subjects (20 eyes) with open-angle glaucoma with no history of surgery were enrolled.
Methods
Ten subjects were randomly assigned to viscocanalostomy according to Stegmann’s technique and 10 subjects to a modified Cairns trabeculectomy. A complete ophthalmologic examination was performed the day before surgery and postoperatively. Further visits were scheduled monthly for 6 to 8 months after surgery.
Main outcome measures
Success was defined as intraocular pressure (IOP) between 7 and 20 mmHg, with no medication.
Results
After a mean follow-up of 6 months (range, 6–8 months), success was obtained in 5 of 10 cases in the trabeculectomy group and in no case in the viscocanalostomy group. With Kaplan-Meier’s method, subjects with viscocanalostomy showed shorter postoperative IOP-reduction periods than subjects undergoing trabeculectomy.
Conclusions
According to the results of this short-term study, trabeculectomy was more effective than viscocanalostomy in lowering IOP in glaucomatous eyes of white patients.
Manuscript no. 99610.
aDepartment of Ophthalmology, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany
Reprint requests to C. P. Jonescu-Cuypers, MD, Department of Ophthalmology, University of Cologne, D-50924 Cologne, Germany
ABSTRACT