Family history of glaucoma in the primary and secondary open-angle glaucomas.

Background

A study was carried out to evaluate the frequency of a positive family history in the primary and secondary open-angle glaucomas.

Patients and methods: The study included 1176 patients with chronic open-angle glaucoma who were differentiated into secondary open-angle glaucoma [pseudoexfoliative glaucoma (n=144) and pigmentary glaucoma (n=61)], and primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG; n=971). The POAG group was divided into non-highly-myopic patients without ("non-highly-myopic POAG"; n=662) or with circular parapapillary atrophy ("age-related atrophic POAG"; n=168), highly myopic POAG (n=35), and focal normal-pressure glaucoma (n=106). All patients were asked whether family members had glaucoma.

Results

In the POAG group, frequency of a positive family history of glaucoma (overall frequency 24.5%) decreased significantly with age from 35.8% in patients (n=240) younger than 50 years, to 25% in patients (n=501) aged between 51 and 70 years and to 11.7% in patients (n=230) older than 70 years. The overall frequencies of a positive family history of glaucoma did not vary significantly between age-related atrophic POAG, focal normal-pressure glaucoma, pseudoexfoliative glaucoma, and pigmentary glaucoma, compared with age-matched groups of non-highly-myopic POAG. Highly myopic POAG had a lower, but not significantly lower, frequency of a positive family history of glaucoma (17.1% vs 26.9%).

Conclusions

In POAG, frequency of a known positive family history of glaucoma decreases with increasing age. Apart from juvenile-onset POAG with a relatively high, and highly myopic POAG with a relatively low frequency of known heredity, other primary and secondary open-angle glaucomas do not show pronounced differences in this variable when adjusted for age.