Recent patents and developments in glaucoma biomarkers

Glaucoma is an eye condition mainly developed from an excessive intraocular pressure. The condition tends to be inherited and may not show up until later in life. The increased pressure, can damage the optic nerve, provoking loss of vision. Without treatment, glaucoma can cause blindness within a few years; consequently glaucoma has to be diagnosed before long-term visual loss occurs. If it is diagnosed and treated early, the disease can be controlled. Usually, the patient does not notice any early symptoms or pain from this increased pressure, so the early diagnosis is problematic. Over half of the patients with glaucoma are unaware they have this blinding disease and by the time they are diagnosed, they already have irreversibly lost approximately 30-50% of their retinal ganglion cells. Glaucoma diagnosis is currently based on specific signs of the disease, characteristic optic nerve head changes and visual field loss. Thus, improved methods for early diagnosis of glaucoma are needed. Molecular genetics are valuable for the understanding the pathophysiology and cure of glaucoma, but still are not widely used for its diagnosis. Genetic studies on glaucoma have revealed many genes and chromosomal loci associated to glaucoma. Consequently, a better understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying glaucoma is required to obtain early diagnosis and avoid potential disease progression. In this article, we revise the patents and the corresponding literature on the latest developments and approaches in glaucoma diagnosis, using mainly molecular genetics.