title: Juvenile glaucoma, race, and refraction.
abstract: Of 68 patients who presented between the ages of 10 and 35 years with elevated intraocular pressure, 25 were classified as juvenile ocular hypertension and 43 as juvenile primary open-angle glaucoma. Blacks constituted a greater proportion of the primary open-angle glaucoma patients (47%) than of the ocular hypertensives (20%) and in both groups presented at younger ages than did whites. Myopia was present in 59% of the ocular hypertensives and 73% of the primary open-angle glaucoma patients, of whom 39% had more than 6 diopters of myopia. All eyes of black patients with more than 3 diopters of myopia had glaucomatous defects compared with 52% of such eyes of white patients. Our data suggest that myopia is strongly associated with juvenile open-angle glaucoma and that young black patients with elevated intraocular pressure, especially when myopic, are more susceptible to glaucomatous damage than are whites.
authors.affiliation: Department of Ophthalmology, New York Eye and Ear Infirmary, NY 10003.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Lotufo
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Ritch
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Szmyd
authors.forename: J E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Burris
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001741:Black or African American; D002648:Child; D005902:Glaucoma, Open-Angle / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000208:ethnology*; D006801:Humans; D009216:Myopia / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology*; D009798:Ocular Hypertension / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000208:ethnology*