New Instrument for Detecting Narrow Angle Glaucoma

Dr. Sanjay Asrani is a Duke University glaucoma specialist that is changing the face of glaucoma treatment and causing much excitement within the medical community. Up until now, narrow angle glaucoma was a very hard form of glaucoma to diagnose. It is a serious form of the disease that is three times likely to result in blindness, accounts for nearly 10 percent of all glaucoma cases and affects an estimated 6 million people throughout the world.

Narrow-angle glaucoma is an aggressive form of glaucoma that is caused by a build-up of fluid behind the iris. This can cause much damage to the optic nerve and lead to vision loss. It’s usually caused by patients having a shallow space between the cornea and the iris which becomes more restricted as one ages, blocking the channel that allows the fluid to drain. Narrow angle glaucoma is most prevalent in the elderly.

Though doctors know about narrow angle glaucoma, instruments only offer clues to the disease, because the optics of the eye do not allow sight into the angle of the eye that narrow-angle glaucoma affects. Until now.

Now there is a one-of-a-kind instrument, created by Duke engineering professor Joseph Izatt and a graduate student at Duke University that allows ophthalmologists to see inside the eye in the exact place that they need to: where the iris meets the cornea. He has studied the instrument’s competence on over 60 patients and has published his results in a peer-reviewed medical journal, Archives of Ophthalmology.

Early detection is the key to preventing narrow-angle glaucoma damage. If not detected beforehand, there will be a sudden increase in pressure which is very painful. The only warning signs are blurry vision and colored halos around lights, unless it is a severe case. In the case of an acute attack there may be nausea and vomiting accompanied by severe pain.

The instrument that allows doctors to detect the disease is similar to a video camera. It produces detailed digital images of the part of the eye that needs examining. As of yet, the instrument has not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The medical community is very excited about the results of the instrument thus far. If approved it could also help detect eye cysts and help with eye surgery.

If the FDA approves the instrument, it will be on the market in about two years.


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