Myopia has been on an uptrend across all ethnic groups here in the last two decades. Patients with longer axial length and high eye pressure were 16 times more likely to have POAG, compared with those with shorter axial length and lower eye pressure.Įyes with myopia tend to have longer axial length, which refers to a specific measurement from the front to the back of the eye.Īssoc Prof Cheng, the principal investigator for the study, said the findings are particularly relevant for the Asian population and in Singapore, considering the prevalence of myopia here. Those with moderate to high myopia (above 300 degrees) and high eye pressure were more than four times more likely to develop POAG, compared with those without myopia and high eye pressure. The researchers looked at 9,422 participants, of which 213 had POAG. Previous studies looked at each factor separately as risk factors for the eye disease. Published last month in Scientific Reports, it is the first study demonstrating higher odds of POAG among people who have both high eye pressure and myopia. But a new local study by researchers from SNEC and SERI may potentially help doctors detect the eye disease at an earlier stage. One only notices it when a significant amount of damage has already occurred,” added Adjunct Associate Professor Shamira Perera, senior consultant ophthalmologist at SNEC’s Glaucoma Department.įield of view is one’s entire scope of vision, which includes the central and side vision. “In POAG, the patient loses vision silently and insidiously at first, leading to a decreased field of view and irrecoverable vision loss. In the acute form of PACG, symptoms such as eye pain, headaches, nausea and blurred vision tend to occur suddenly. Mr Ismail suffers from primary open angle glaucoma (POAG), the most common type of glaucoma affecting three in 200 adults here and two-thirds of all glaucoma patients in Asia, said Associate Professor Cheng Ching Yu, clinician scientist at the Singapore Eye Research Institute (SERI) and Singapore National Eye Centre (SNEC).ĭue to its lack of obvious symptoms in the early stages, this type of glaucoma has a four-fold likelihood of going undiagnosed compared with another form, primary angle closure glaucoma (PACG), until it hits the moderate to late stages, said Assoc Prof Cheng. Luckily, I did not wait too long to see a doctor or my vision loss would be worse,” said Mr Ismail, who also has myopia.

By then, about half of the vision in my left eye was already damaged. “I was very surprised when the doctor told me I had glaucoma as no one else in my family has it. Characterised by progressive damage to the optic nerve and loss of vision, glaucoma is one of the leading causes of blindness worldwide. Singapore - He was diagnosed with glaucoma in 2014, but 61-year-old Mr Ismail Busri does not know when the insidious eye disease first crept up on his left eye. Research identifies higher odds among people with both high eye pressure and myopia

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