June 20, 2007

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) School of Optometry have found a connection between glaucoma and sleep apnea. They will present their discovery to 4,000 worldwide glaucoma specialists next month at the 2007 World Glaucoma Congress in Singapore.

Over a three-year period, UAB researchers reviewed more than 70,000 records at the Birmingham Veterans Affairs Medical Center (BVAMC).

“The most crucial bit of information that we found is that the risk of being diagnosed with glaucoma is 75 percent higher among those who had been diagnosed with sleep apnea,” said Leo Semes, associate professor of optometry and one of the investigators on this study.

While this connection has been suggested before, this is the largest study to support the idea, Semes said. Researchers now predict that sleep apnea may cause glaucoma.

“A person suffering from sleep apnea periodically stops breathing during sleep,” said Semes. “The working hypothesis is that during these non-breathing episodes, or apneic periods, there is a loss of blood flow to the optic nerve, which may lead to damage evidenced by glaucoma.”

Semes, along with UAB colleagues and co-authors Megan Walker, O.D., Patti Fuhr, O.D., Ph.D., and Olvio Clay, M.S., Ph.D., will present their findings with a poster during the Association of International Glaucoma Societies (AIGS) World Glaucoma Congress meeting July 18 to 21.

For more about the 2007 World Glaucoma Congress, visit http://www.globalaigs.org/WGC2007/.