Profile and Clinical Characteristics of Newly Diagnosed Glaucoma in Tertiary Eye Hospital in North India

PURPOSE: This study aims to assess the clinical profile and characteristics of newly diagnosed glaucoma in tertiary eye hospital in North India. METHODS: All the newly diagnosed glaucoma patients were enrolled in this study who came for the routine eye examination at our tertiary eye Hospital, Dr Shroff’s Charity Eye Hospital, New Delhi between November 2021 and October 2022. A detailed history was obtained and all the glaucoma investigations were performed including best corrected visual acuity, Van Herrick grading, gonioscopy, optic disc assessment with 90D lens, applanation tonometry, Cirrus HD OCT and automated perimetry. Various parameters like visual field index (VFI), retinal nerve fire layer (RNFL), intraocular pressure (IOP), rim area, disc area, average and minimum ganglion cell complex-inner plexiform layer, average cup disc ratio, vertical cup disc ratio and cup volume were evaluated. RESULTS: In this study, we recruited total 79 subjects who were able to complete all the investigations and fulfilled the inclusion criteria. 65.82 % subjects were diagnosed as primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG). We found that 83.5% patients were having vision equal or better than 6/18 and 81.01% had IOP up to 21 mmHg. VFI had positive correlation with average RNFL thickness, rim area, disc area, average and minimum GCC-IPL. It also had negative correlation with average Cup disc ratio, vertical cup-disc ratio and cup volume. On the basis of mean deviation, half of the subjects had mild glaucoma. CONCLUSIONS: A thorough literature search revealed that no similar studies correlating VFI with OCT parameters had been conducted in the past. Among the newly diagnosed primary glaucoma patients most cases had mild glaucoma followed by moderate glaucoma and severe glaucoma. Patients with a better VFI showed a better RNFL thickness and had larger discs as compared to those with a poorer VFI. POAG was the most frequently observed glaucoma subtype among primary glaucoma in tertiary eye Hospital in north India. Key words: Glaucoma, Glaucoma screening, Visual field analyzer, Optical coherence tomography, VFI