[Current Status of the Pharmacological Treatment of Glaucoma and Its Prospects]

Glaucoma, the leading cause of blindness in adults, is a progressive neurodegenerative disease characterized by retinal ganglion cell (RGC) death. Currently, many intraocular pressure (IOP)-lowering drugs known to affect this disease progression have been developed as therapeutic agents. However, there are many cases of disease progression, even with sufficient IOP reduction. Therefore, newer therapeutic approaches other than IOP-lowering drugs are needed. To elucidate the pathogenesis of glaucoma and to develop therapeutic agents, the evaluation of RGCs is imperative, as their degeneration is the main cause of this disease. However, it is difficult to obtain RGCs from healthy individuals, let alone glaucoma patients. Therefore, research on the pathophysiology of glaucoma and drug discovery has not progressed sufficiently. Recent developments have made it possible to generate induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells from the blood or skin of glaucoma patients and induce them to differentiate into RGCs to study the pathogenesis of glaucoma. In addition, drug repositioning for ophthalmological diseases such as glaucoma is one of the most active fields. Many of these repositioned drugs have found therapeutic applications in ophthalmology. Here, we introduce the current status of the pharmacological treatment of glaucoma and its prospects.