Lasers to treat glaucoma

Press, 25 November 1982, Page 13

Lasers to treat glaucoma

Laser beams will be used at Christchurch Hospital to treat the blinding eye disease. glaucoma.. for the first time z next month. Dr Roy Holmes, a Christchurch eye specialist who has managed the glaucoma clinic at Christchurch Hospital since 1966, has returned from a conference in the United States, attended by about 9000 opthalmologists from throughout the world.

Although Christchurch Hospital has had laser equipment for the treatment of glaucoma for several months. Dr Holmes decided to wait until after he had attended the conference before he used the treatment.

He said before he left that he had “a lot of wrinkles to iron out.”

During the conference, in San Francisco, and after it, Dr Holmes studied laser treatment of glaucoma in the United States, and said he now felt confident to proceed with it.

He said he would confer with his colleagues at Christchurch Hospital, and the laser treatment would be closely monitored. Dr Holmes believed it to be the first time that laser beams would be used to treat glaucoma in New Zealand. “I would imagine that about two or three patients a week might be given laser treatment for glaucoma. “It will be most useful for those patients who are on maximum medication and who are still losing their field of vision,” said Dr Holmes.

Some patients would still receive ordinary eye surgery. Those who did not respond to laser treatment would also be likely to have surgery. Glaucoma attacks 1 per cent of people over the age of 40, and it is one of the main causes of blindness. Once blindness occurs from glaucoma, it is incurable. It is the result of raised pressure in the eye, and has no symptoms until it has reached an advanced stage. Early detection depends on eye specialists finding it during regular examinations. Christchurch Hospital’s laser equipment has already been used on diabetics, who risk slow blindness from diabetes.