Profile of primary childhood glaucoma at a child eye health tertiary facility in Malawi

BACKGROUND: To describe the clinical characteristics and treatment of primary childhood glaucoma at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital in Blantyre, Malawi. METHODS: A retrospective case notes review was undertaken of all medical records of patients aged less than 16 years with a diagnosis of primary glaucoma according to the Childhood Glaucoma Research Network Classification (CGRN) who presented from January 2016 to December 2018. The parameters extracted from the case files included age at presentation, sex, type of glaucoma, presenting complaints, laterality of ocular involvement, examination findings and the treatment modality instituted. The Mann-Whitney test was used to investigate factors associated with the intraocular pressure (IOP) in eyes that had a higher presenting IOP value compared to contralateral eyes. RESULTS: A total of 45 subjects (80 eyes) were identified, 42 with primary congenital glaucoma (PCG) and 3 with juvenile open angle glaucoma (JOAG). The mean age for the population was 2.6 years (S.D ± 3.7) and most of the patients were male, with a male-female ratio of 2:1. The majority of patients had bilateral disease (n = 35, 77.8%) with the commonest presenting complaint being a whitish appearance of the eye (57.5%). The eyes studied had a mean IOP of 30.1 mmHg (CI 27.4–32.9), a mean horizontal corneal diameter (HCD) of 13.6 mm (CI 13.1–14.2) and a mean cup-disc-ratio `(CDR) of 0.73 (CI 0.66–0.79). In addition, 62 eyes (77.5%) had corneal haze on examination. Most patients (n = 59, 73.8%) underwent a combined trabeculotomy – trabeculectomy surgery within the study period. The median presenting IOP was significantly higher with JOAG compared to PCG (P = 0.02). CONCLUSION: PCG was the most common primary childhood glaucoma at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital and most patients presented with bilateral eye involvement. Most of the eyes had corneal haze and JOAG was associated with a higher presenting IOP compared to PCG. Further studies to investigate the outcomes of combined trabeculotomy – trabeculectomy surgery in primary childhood glaucoma in Malawi are recommended. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12886-022-02279-0.