Emerging perspectives on glaucoma: highlights of a roundtable discussion

To present emerging perspectives on open-angle glaucoma related to patient compliance, current drug therapy, and treatment options.

Roundtable discussion.

The panel discussion identified the following issues about patient compliance:1. It is a common problem in clinical practice and is often underappreciated by physicians.2. It is difficult for clinicians to detect.3. There are several risk factors that increase the probability of noncompliance. 4. Compliance can be improved through education, communication, improvement of the doctor-patient relationship, compliance aids, and simplifying the treatment regimen.

Patients' compliance with the therapeutic regimen for open-angle glaucoma is very important to the eventual outcome of their disease treatment. Physicians can improve their patients' compliance by a few simple, cost-effective interventions in the clinical setting. When considering different agents as first-line therapies, once-a-day dosing would be optimal for enhancing compliance.