Clinical signs and characteristics of pigmentary glaucoma in Chinese

To report the clinical findings in 21 Chinese patients with pigmentary glaucoma (PG).

Medical charts of 21 patients diagnosed with PG between 1993 and 2006 at the Beijing Tongren Eye Center were reviewed.

From our database, 14 men and seven women were identified as having PG. The mean age of the subjects at the time of the diagnosis was 35.3+/-6.8 years. All but one patient had myopia >-0.5 diopters (D) with a mean spherical equivalent refractive error of -5.38+/-2.56 D. The average intraocular pressure at the initial diagnosis was 34.5+/-10.3 mmHg. All 17 patients with visibility chart documentation of the appearance of the peripheral lens and zonule showed lenticular and/or zonular pigmentation. The irides of all 15 subjects for whom detailed descriptions of the iris configuration were reported were bowed posteriorly. None of the subjects had iris transillumination defects (TIDs) except for trace areas of transillumination in both eyes of one patient.

In these Chinese patients with PG, homogeneous increased trabecular pigmentation, dusting of the peripheral lens or zonule with pigment granules, and posterior bowing of the iris were common. Typical spoke-like radial TIDs were not observed.