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Abstract #77056 Published in IGR 19-3

Systemic hypertension is not protective against chronic intraocular pressure elevation in a rodent model

van Koeverden AK; van Koeverden AK; He Z; Nguyen CTO; Nguyen CTO; Vingrys AJ; Bui BV
Scientific reports 2018; 8: 7107


High intraocular pressure is the most well documented glaucoma risk factor; however many patients develop and/or show progression of glaucoma in its absence. It is now thought that in some instances, ocular perfusion pressure (blood pressure - intraocular pressure) may be as important as intraocular pressure alone. Thus, systemic hypertension would be protective against glaucoma. Epidemiological studies, however, are inconclusive. One theory of why hypertension may not protect against elevated intraocular pressure in spite of increasing ocular perfusion pressure is that with time, morphological changes to the vasculature and autoregulatory failure outweigh the benefits of improved perfusion pressure, ultimately leading to poor retinal and optic nerve head blood supply. In this study we showed the presence of increased wall:lumen ratio and wall area of the ophthalmic artery in rats with chronic hypertension in addition to failure of retinal autoregulation in response to acute modification of ocular perfusion pressure. Subsequently we found that in spite of dramatically increasing ocular perfusion pressure, chronic systemic hypertension failed to protect retinal structure and function from a rodent model of glaucoma.

Department of Optometry and Vision Sciences, the University of Melbourne, Parkville, 3010, Victoria, Australia.

Full article

Classification:

5.1 Rodent (Part of: 5 Experimental glaucoma; animal models)
6.1.3 Factors affecting IOP (Part of: 6 Clinical examination methods > 6.1 Intraocular pressure measurement; factors affecting IOP)
6.11 Bloodflow measurements (Part of: 6 Clinical examination methods)



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