The surgical treatment of primary congenital (infantile) glaucoma

Aim. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the surgical intervention for the treatment of the children at the age from 3 to 10 years suffering from primary congenital (infantile) glaucoma depending on the severity of the morphometric changes. Materials and methods. A total of 16 patients (30 eyes) were available for the examination. Three patient (6 eyes) presented with mild glaucoma, 8 ones (15 eyes) with advanced glaucoma, and 5 (10 eyes) with end-stage glaucoma. All the patients underwent the surgical treatment supplemented by a course of neuroprotective therapy during the postoperative period (6 months after surgery). Results. Based on the results of the preoperative examination, the children with mild glaucoma underwent the surgical intervention on 5 eyes with the use of non-penetrating deep sclerotomy. The patients with advanced glaucoma and the children with terminal glaucoma were operated on 15 and 8 eyes respectively by means of “ab externo” sinusotrabeculotomy. The filtering operation was performed on two eyes of the children with terminal glaucoma with the use of our original method. Conclusion. The above surgical technologies allowed to decrease the frequency of intra- and postoperative complications by 15%, avoid secondary interventions, decrease intraocular pressure in 12.3% of the patients, and improve visual acuity by 0.15 in comparison with its initial value.

infantile glaucoma, surgical treatment