Study reveals glaucoma threat

              New research shows you don't have to be 40 to start worrying about the insidious eye dis­ease, glaucoma, which causes one out of eight cases of blindness in the U.S.
A study at Louisiana State university medical school on 125 medical students turned up one positive case of glaucoma and three strong suspects. The glaucoma victim was 21 years old.
It has been medical dictum until recently that glaucoma at­tacks people about the age of 40-45 when the tissues of the eye begin to lose elasticity.
Glaucoma is caused by in­creased pressure of fluid within the eyeball, due to obstruction of the normal channel for its outflow. The pressure eventual­ly destroys the optic nerve.
The commonest form, "open angle" or chronic glaucoma, ap­pears in 90 per cent of all cases of the disease.
It is painless, and its ravages will produce blindness if the pressure inside the eyeball is not reduced.
Doctors now have a number of drugs which effectively re­duce this pressure. Chronic glaucoma cannot be cured, but its effect can be combatted by the regular use of special eye drops or pills. Study  at   LSU
The study at LSU, believed to be the first of its kind, is being carried out under the di­rection of Dr. George M. Haik, professor and head of LSU's department of ophthalmology.
Glaucoma is best detected by instruments which carefully measure the fluid pressure in­side the eyeball.
Dr. Haik and his fellow re­searchers use three different pressure-measuring instruments in their study, which is event­ually intended to cover all of the 475 med students at the school.
Working with Dr. Haik on the projects are Dr. George Ellis, associate professor of opthalmo-logy, and Drs. John Nowell and Hiliard Haik, instructors. Reasonably Accurate
One of their instruments, small enough to go in a doc­tor's coat pocket, is the Schiotz tonometer—a handy and reason­ably accurate device which has a slender plunger inside a cup placed against the eyeball.

The plunger activates a needle on a dial to show variations in pressure. The reading must be converted to milligrams of mercury—as atmospheric pres­sure is measured by a bar­ometer.
Ophthalmologists have been working for a number of years now on making the conversion table for the readings as pre­cisely accurate as possible. Reading  on  Paper
Another device, related to the Schiotz tonometer, is an elec­tric tonometer which operates in the same general fashion, but puts the reading on paper as does an electrocardiograph.
The most precise measure­ment of intraocular pressure yet available is done by an "applanation tonometer"—which combines a slit-lamp microscope with a special appliance whose business end is a transclucent cone placed against the iris of the eye.
The chief virtue of this in­strument is that it gives a di­rect reading, in millimeters of mercury, of intraocular pres­sure. Uses AU 3
Dr. Haik and co-workers use all three of these devices, plus a few other checks, in studying his medical student subjects.
Emotional stress, and other factors, he points out, can alter the reading of intraocular pressure and give a temporari­ly false picture of what is going on inside the eyeball.
Tests repeated at intervals are one way of striking a happy medium which presents the true picture.
"We- sometimes also do 'pro­vocative' tests in which we have the subject drink a quart of water in five minutes or sit in the dark for an hour or two," the specialist explained.
Build Up Fluid
Such measures temporarily build up fluid pressure inside the eyeball. A reading is then taken to determine whether a normal outflow of fluid has re­duced the pressure.
The electronic Tonometer gives a graph reading of pres­sure over a four-minute peri­od, which is considered suffi­cient time for an outflow of tear-fluid—if the channel is not obstructed.
"We know enough about chronic glaucoma now so that one never need lose his sight on account of the disease," says Dr. Haik.
The victim, who in many cases has inherited a structural abnormality   inside   the   eye, PHOTO: READY TO TEST the pressure inside the eyeball, an indicator of whether the eye disease blaucoma is present, this team at Louisiana State univer­sity medical school includes, from left, DR. JOHN NOWELL, DR. HIL-LIARD HAIK, DR. GEORGE ELLIS and MRS. MERWIN CLARK, sec­retary in LSU's department of ophthalmology department.