Comparison of Aqueous Flare Values after Micropulse Transscleral Laser Treatment and Continuous Wave Transscleral Cyclophotocoagulation

ABSTRACT

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to analyse the changes in flare values after Micropulse Transscleral Laser Treatment for Glaucoma (MP-TLT) in patients with refractory glaucoma and to compare with the outcomes of patients who underwent continuous wave (CW) diode laser cyclophotocoagulation (CW-TSCPC).

Methods

In this single-centre study, we reviewed the medical records of 54 patients who underwent MP-TLT and 35 patients who underwent CW-TSCPC at Ankara University Faculty of Medicine, Department of Ophthalmology. Aqueous flare values were measured by laser flare photometry.

Results

The mean laser flare values in both groups (MP-TLT/CW-TSCPC) increased after surgery from 20.85 ± 8.74/22.14 ± 7.39 ph/ms at baseline to 48.52 ± 18.23/57.38 ± 20.08 ph/ms (P = .001) on day 1 and then progressively decreased to 44.13 ± 18.32/52.24 ± 20.56 in week 1, 40.5 ± 18.5/48.24 ± 19.23 week 2 and 35.28 ± 17.09/41.11 ± 16.7 month 1 (all p < .05) and returned to similar levels to baseline at month 3 and month 6 (both p > .05). Patients who achieved treatment success had significantly higher flare values than patients who failed on post-operative day 1, week 1 and week 2 in both groups. The flare values were significantly lower in the MP-TLT group than the CW-TSCPC group on post-operative day 1, week 1, week 2 and month 1 (all p < .05). There were no cases of prolonged post-operative inflammation or serious complications in both groups.

Conclusion

Intraocular inflammation, quantified by aqueous flare, may be a contributing factor to the IOP lowering effect of transscleral diode laser cyclophotocoagulation in the early post-operative period.

KEYWORDS:

• Aqueous flare
• continuous wave
• micropulse laser
• transscleral diode cyclophotocoagulation

Acknowledgments

The authors report no financial disclosures. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the article.

Consent to participate

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Consent for publication

Patients signed informed consent regarding publishing their data.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethics approval

The study was conducted in accordance with the tenets of the Declaration of Helsinki. Ethical approval was obtained from the Institutional Review Board of Ankara University Faculty of Medicine in view of the retrospective nature of the study, and all the procedures being performed were part of the routine care (Approval ID: İ5-280-20).

Additional information

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship and publication of this article.