Demographic features of subjects with congenital glaucoma

Congenital glaucoma is a potentially blinding ocular disease of the childhood. Identification of the possible associated risk factors and may be helpful for prevention or early detection of this public health problem.

To demonstrate the demographic features of congenital glaucoma subjects.

The charts of congenital glaucoma patients referred to Tamcelik Glaucoma Center were retrospectively reviewed through the dates of 2000 and 2013.

Analyzed data included diagnosis, age at first presentation, symptoms at first presentation, laterality of the disease, sex, presence of consanguinity, family history of congenital glaucoma, maturity of the fetus at delivery, and maternal age at conception.

Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 19.0 by IBM (SPSS Inc, Chicago, Illinois, USA) was used to compare the mean of continuous variables with Student's t-test and analysis of variance (ANOVA) and χ2 test was used to test differences in proportions of categorical variables.

The data of 600 eyes of 311 patients were analyzed. The distribution of primary and secondary congenital glaucoma among the patients were 63.3% (n = 197) and 36.7% (n = 114), respectively. Of the 311 patients, 57.2% (n = 178) were male and 42.8% (n = 133) were female. The overall frequency of bilateral disease was 92.3% (n = 287). Overall rate of consanguinity and positive family history was 45.3% (n = 141) and 21.2% (n = 66), respectively.

Bilateral disease in this study was more common than previously reported studies. Positive family history was more frequent in primary congenital glaucoma although not statistically significant.