Safety and efficacy of canaloplasty versus trabeculectomy in treatment of glaucoma

We assess the efficacy and safety of canaloplasty and trabeculectomy for treatment of glaucoma. We searched the China National Knowledge Infrastructure, PubMed, Web of Science, and WanFang databases for potentially eligible studies. Pooled risk ratio (RR) with 95% confidence interval (CI) was calculated using random- or fixed-effect models if appropriate. Eight studies were included for meta-analysis. There was no difference in intraocular pressure at 6 months (WMD = 0.97, 95%CI: -0.48-2.41). Intraocular pressure in canaloplasty group 12 months after operation was higher than in trabeculectomy group (WMD = 1.90, 95%CI: 0.12-3.69), P < 0.05). The canaloplasty group showed higher success rate than trabeculectomy group (RR = 0.86, 95%CI: 0.77-0.97). The canaloplasty group was more likely to have hyphema (RR = 2.96, 95%CI: 1.51-5.83), P < 0.05) than trabeculectomy group (RR = 0.24, 95, CI(0.06-0.89), P < 0.05]. The incidence of and hypotony and postoperative choroid abnormalities in canaloplasty group was significantly lower than that in trabeculectomy group (RR = 0.30, 95%CI: 0.11-0.83; RR = 0.24, 95%CI: 0.09-0.66), P < 0.05). Both trabeculectomy and canaloplasty can significantly reduce the intraocular pressure in glaucoma patients at 12 months after operation, trabeculectomy leads a more marked IOP decrease than canaloplasty at the cost of a higher complication rate and more demanding for postoperative care.