Long-term improvement of visual fields with medicinal herbs in normal tension glaucoma

Tetsuro Okabe
Department of Pathology, Graduate School of Medicine, University of Tokyo
 
PURPOSE
Glaucoma is a progressive optic neuropathy and a leading cause of blindness. Neural losses from glaucoma are irreversible. At the present time, the aim of glaucoma treatment is to slow progression and minimize the risk of further damage. Functional improvement with treatment is not expected. We report the case series of patients who experienced significant improvements in vision following traditional herbal therapy.
The clinical trial was performed to test the therapeutic effect of medicinal herbs for patients with normal tension glaucoma.
METHODS
16 patients (33-77 yr old) were diagnosed as normal pressure glaucoma with intraocular pressure of 8-18mmHg. They were treated with mixtures of 23-28 medicinal herbs prescribed according to the differential diagnosis of traditional herbal medicine. Visual field test (Humphrey Field Analyzer) was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the herbal therapy.
RESULTS
Intraocular pressure was not changed with the herbal therapy. However, visual field test demonstrated that MD (mean deviation)
 was improved after 4-10 months of herbal therapy in 15 of the 16 patients.　In addition, improved vision was not exacerbated after the herbal therapy. The improvements of visual fields have not been ceased even after two year of treatment. Visual fields have been continuously improved for 2~3 years of the herbal treatment.
CONCLUSIONS
The results imply that intraocular pressure does not affect the progression of optic neuropathy in normal tension glaucoma. Although the mechanism of improved vision cannot be proven, it is likely that herbal therapy resulted in some reversal of retinal ganglion cell dysfunction.