It is next March 12th the World´s Glaucoma Day, Cuba celebrated the world´s week dedicated to this disease with important acheivements in its and an online workshop to favor the development, the improvement and exchange of experiences among professionals of this field, as well as   and early assistance to this condition, of high prevalence in our country.

Isabel Obret, the doctor at the Cuban Institute of Ophthalmology Ramón Pando Ferrer, when talking to Prensa Latina, commented about the advances of the Cuban pharmaceutical industry to assist this disease, that causes irreversible blindness. She said: “When I went in greater detail the field of Ophthalmology, there were only two types of antihypertensive eye drops in Cuba and today we have five medications produced in Cuba, combine and non-combined”.

We can mention: Timolol, Betaxolol for asthmatic patients who are intolerants to the first, as well as other inhibitors such as Dorzolamida and combined eye drops that is the case of Latanoprost.

Obret also explained the Department of this service at the Cuban Institute of Ophthalmology also has laser technology, equipments for diagnosis and follow- up and tomography.

Isabel Obret, doctor at the Cuban Institute of Ophthalmology Ramón Pando Ferrer  Photo: Prensa Latina

As an example we have, the tonometry of dynamic environs of Pascal to checked intraocular pressure. This equipment allows the identification of the intraocular pressure, the closer to the real value.     

High intraocular pressure is a condition of multifactorial origin and is the first risk factor for glaucoma and treatment is generally focused on reducing that value.

Glaucoma is considered as one of the main causes of blindness in the world, and is characterized by the increase of pressure in the eyeball, causing irreversible lesions to the optic nerve. 

Experts agree on the idea that the most frequent is the primary open- angle glaucoma. It is asymptomatic, so it is more complex to prevent the glaucomatous damage. Studies carried out display evidences which show that myopic are more likely to suffer from this kind of glaucoma.

People suffering from close angle glaucoma can have eye pain, associated to intermittent red eye or start with an acute pain, that can cause sudden loss of vision   

Obret commented that Glaucoma has a high prevalence but is more frequent in black people and the patient comes to the doctor at a late phase of the disease, in many occasions.  

Likewise, he underlined that there are several types of Glaucoma, each of them with different origin and development. Nevertheless, the common denominator is the progressive affectation of the nervous structure, causing structural and functional changes in visual field. 

Photo: Internet

Glaucoma is treated with medications but there are also other alternatives like laser or filtering surgery, which are very expensive in some occasions.

People over 40 years should go not only to the optometrist to change glasses but also to the appointment with the eye doctor, where the intraocular pressure is checked and an ocular fundus is performed to identify this condition, as this is an incurable disease which cannot be avoided.