Prevalence of Ocular Hypertension and Glaucoma as Well as Associated Factors in Graves' Orbitopathy

The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of ocular hypertension (OHT) and open-angle glaucoma (OAG) in patients with Graves' orbitopathy (GO) and to investigate the associations between clinical features of the disease and the prevalence of OHT and OAG.

A cross-sectional analytic study was conducted among a total of 1128 patients with GO. A complete ophthalmic examination was performed, including intraocular pressure, optic disc photography, visual field testing using a Humphrey visual field analyzer, and retinal nerve fiber layer thickness measured by optical coherence tomography. The results were analyzed by univariate and multivariate logistic regression.

A 6.8% prevalence of OHT (77/1128) and a 1.6% prevalence of OAG (18/1128) were observed. When considering only patients older than 40 years, the prevalence of OHT and OAG was 9.5% and 3.4%, respectively. Twenty-nine of the 1128 patients (2.6%) developed compressive optic neuropathy. Of the factors evaluated, male sex [odds ratio (OR), 1.83; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.08-3.10], duration of GO (6 to 24 mo; OR, 2.08; 95% CI, 1.17-3.71; 24 to 60 mo; OR, 3.45; 95% CI, 1.66-7.18), clinical activity score ≥3 (OR, 1.76; 95% CI, 1.03-3.01), extraocular muscle involvement (OR, 4.65; 95% CI, 2.54-8.50), and lid retraction (OR, 2.17; 95% CI, 1.19-3.96) were associated with the prevalence of OHT in GO. The prevalence of OAG was associated with male sex (OR, 4.29; 95% CI, 1.60-11.51) and duration of GO (≥60 mo; OR, 4.28; 95% CI, 1.11-16.47).

The prevalence of OHT in patients with GO was higher and the prevalence of OAG was similar to that in the general population.