Short-Term Reproducibility of Twenty-Four-Hour Intraocular Pressure Curves in Untreated Patients with Primary Open-Angle Glaucoma and Ocular Hypertension

PURPOSE: To assess the short-term day-to-day reproducibility of 24-hour intraocular pressure (IOP) curves in various respects in untreated primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG) and ocular hypertension (OHT) patients. METHODS: 47 subjects with POAG and 34 subjects with OHT underwent IOP measurements every 2 hours in both eyes for consecutive 48 hours by a non-contact tonometer (NCT). IOP values at each time point were recorded. Mean IOP, peak IOP, time difference of peak IOP between two days and IOP fluctuation were also calculated. Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) and Bland-Altman plots were used to evaluate reproducibility. RESULTS: ICCs of the entire IOP values for a complete 24-hour curve were 0.577 and 0.561 in POAG and OHT patients, respectively. ICCs of IOP values at different time points ranged from 0.384 (10am) to 0.686 (4am) in POAG patients and from 0.347 (6am) to 0.760 (4am) in OHT patients. ICCs of mean IOP, peak IOP and IOP fluctuation were respectively 0.832, 0.704, 0.367 in POAG patients and 0.867, 0.816 0.633 in OHT patients. Only 37.23% and 35.29% of the peak IOP time points appeared within the time difference of 2 hours in POAG and OHT patients, respectively, while 53.19% and 48.53% appeared within 4 hours in POAG and OHT patients, respectively. CONCLUSION: A 24-hour IOP curve in a single day is not highly reproducible in short-term and has limited use for evaluating individual IOP condition. Mean IOP and peak IOP for a 24-hour IOP curve are useful parameters in clinical follow-up, while IOP value at a certain time point, IOP fluctuation and peak IOP time point should be interpreted with caution.