10
doc • Spring 2014
Kentucky
Promising
Glaucoma
Treatments
On The
Horizon
By Doris Settles, Staff Writer
In the early 1940s, my grandmother was
diagnosed with glaucoma. Essentially, the
doctor explained that her vision would progressively worsen as she lost more peripheral
vision; no treatment was recommended.
Today, the patient diagnosed with glaucoma
looks forward to aggressive treatment in a
wide variety of options with even more in
the pipeline.
Historically, topical treatments for glaucoma
have been available since the 1860s, when a
British physician noticed the potential eye
pressure benefits of the calabar bean. There
are now four common classes of eye drops
routinely prescribed for glaucoma patients,
some in multiple formulations, providing
physicians with a substantial armamentarium of treatments. Current glaucoma
medications reduce intraocular pressure
(IOP) by either reducing the production of
fluid in the eye, or by increasing its outflow.
Prostaglandins, which increase outflow, are
now the most prescribed glaucoma treatment worldwide.
A new experimental medication for glaucoma, BOL 303259-X (Bausch and Lomb),
seems to lower intraocular pressure as
effectively and safely as the gold standard,
latanoprost, and might be more potent, say
investigators.
Dr. Daniel Moore, Assistant Professor of
Opthalmology and Visual Sciences at the
University of Kentucky, explains, “This is a
slightly modified target of the ‘newest’ class
of medications, the prostaglandins (on the
market since the mid-1990s).” Currently
undergoing a phase III trial, early results
suggest it may be as efficacious as current
prostaglandins if not slightly superior.
But Moore sees more on the horizon. “A
new class of medications — ‘Rho kinase
inhibitors’ — are currently in clinical trials
and are expected to become available in the
next five to 10 years. Early results suggest
these medications are equally effective as
available agents.” Duke University’s semiindependent pharmaceutical company has
one of this new class of drugs starting Phase
III of clinical investigation.
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