Characteristics of Pediatric Glaucoma in a Latin American Reference Center

AIM: To describe the clinical and epidemiological characteristics of children with pediatric glaucoma (PG) treated in an ophthalmologic national reference center. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A retrospective study of patients diagnosed with PG in a national ophthalmologic reference center was made, between 2005 and 2015. Clinical findings, type of treatment, and the follow-up were evaluated. RESULTS: A total of 89 patients (145 eyes) were included. The median age of diagnosis was 2.0 years. The most frequent type of glaucoma was primary PG with 67.4% of affected patients, primary congenital glaucoma (PCG) being more frequent (69 eyes) than juvenile open-angle glaucoma (JOAG 36 eyes). Secondary PG accounted for 32.6% of the cases (40 eyes). At least one surgical procedure was needed in 56.6% of all studied eyes, and 10.7% of eyes had more than two surgical procedures. Even more, eyes with PCG had surgery in 88.4% of cases. On the contrary, eyes with JOAG did not require surgery. In the last assessment, the distribution of cases according visual acuity did not show differences. However, it is important to note that patients with secondary PG maintained a good vision only in 17.9% of cases. CONCLUSION: Pediatric glaucoma is a heterogeneous group of diseases, and due to its low incidence, descriptive reports of large cohorts are not available. This study has a well-detailed report of PG characteristics in a national reference center. The frequency of JOAG in the present study was significantly higher than that reported in other studies. Also, clinical characteristics of all glaucoma described have some differences from data published. CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE: There are few studies that describe characteristics of PG. This study is an important tool to analyze the characteristics of PG in an effort to better know the disease. HOW TO CITE THIS ARTICLE: Saavedra C, Rios HA, Belalcazar S, et al. Characteristics of Pediatric Glaucoma in a Latin American Reference Center. J Curr Glaucoma Pract 2020;14(1):10–15.