Glaucoma Neuroprotection Research Paper

Focus on Glaucoma Neuroprotection therapies

Introduction:

In the world, glaucomatous optic neuropathy has been established as the most common cause of irreversible blindness and the second most common in developed countries such as North America and Europe. In glaucoma, the injury at the site of the optic disc leads to progressive loss of axons and cell bodies over time. So, in glaucoma, the visual loss was predominantly caused due to one of structural failures of the retinal ganglion cell and its axon as a result of injury, which was irreversible at the functional and structural level. Lowering intraocular pressure plays an efficacious role in slowing the progressive loss of vision,

Objective:

This paper outlines issues at the laboratory and clinical trial level that need to be addressed for

• Many issues were associated with using nonhuman primates for glaucoma neuroprotection result in a counterintuitive result in terms of the drug development process.
• In the past, the process of drug development for glaucoma was viewed as a pyramid. Figure 1

Figure 1: An older view of drug development for neuroprotection in glaucoma.
Adapted from: Levin LA

• Given that glaucoma is usually asymptomatic so a therapy for glaucoma should be relatively uncomplicated and simple for patients; therefore, the choice of a drug delivery system is important in glaucoma neuroprotection.
• Most commonly, drugs that lower intraocular pressures are topically delivered as eye drops, and it is reasonable to attempt the same with a neuroprotection therapy.
• Many disease treatments are only partly successful as monotherapies; however, when combined with other therapies, the result is often virtual eradication of a