Association of refractive errors with intraocular pressure and its relationship with age and gender

• Author Details:   
• Roopa Somashekar Mathapathi
• Satish Sharanppagouda Patil

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Background & Objectives: Glaucoma is one of the leading causes of blindness worldwide. Increased Intraocular Pressure (IOP) is a well-known and important risk factor for development of glaucoma. Refractive errors are one of the growing problems worldwide with myopia as the most common refractive error. The present study is conducted to analyze the correlation between IOP and refractive status of eye and also to study the influence of age and gender on IOP.
Methodology: 120 cases of refractive error (ametropic eyes) aged between 20 to 60 years, attending Ophthalmology OPD were selected. They were categorized into four groups as High myopia (power > -6D), Moderate myopia (-3D to -6D), Low myopia (<-3D) and hypermetropia(>+0.25D). 120 subjects with normal vision (emmetropic eyes) of same age group were selected as control group. Visual acuity was determined by Snellen’s chart, refractive error diagnosed by retinoscopy. IOP was measured by applanation method (using Perkin’s Tonometer).
Results: Student’s t-test for comparison between two groups and one way ANOVA test for multiple group comparison was used in analysis of data. In the Correlation of refractive status and IOP, it is observed that in high myopic ?p’ value is <0.001 which is highly significant indicating that high myopic are more prone for increased IOP. Also, a positive correlation was found between IOP & advancing age. There was no significant change in IOP between the males and females.
Interpretation & Conclusion: It is observed that as the degree of myopia increases, IOP increases and also advancing age increases IOP. The study supports the hypothesis that high myopia and advancing age are the important risk factor for development of ocular hypertension.

Keywords: IOP, Myopia, Age, Gender, Glaucoma, Perkin’s Tonometer