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Page: << Prev | 1 | 2 In glaucoma, the optic nerve becomes progressively damaged and, if not treated, leads to loss of vision and even blindness.
The study authors suggested that the link between glaucoma and thyroid disorders may owe to chemical deposits in the blood vessels that circulate blood to the eye, causing an increase in pressure within the eyeball. Increased pressure in the eyeball is the main feature of glaucoma.
Dr. Andrew Iwach, a spokesman for the American Academy of Ophthalmology and executive director of the Glaucoma Center of San Francisco, said the potential link between thyroid problems and glaucoma is interesting and should be taken into account, but it still needs to be proven. The best advice is to get your eyes checked, he said.
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"If you haven't seen an ophthalmologist by age 40, that's a great time to get a baseline exam," Iwach said.
"People may not know they are at risk for glaucoma. You are functioning fine, and yet slowly, this disease can chip away at the optic nerve, and by the time you have symptoms from glaucoma, oftentimes there's not really much we can do," he said.
In a related study, researchers at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago found that many elderly people have undiagnosed thyroid problems, including thyroid cancer. Older patients are twice as likely to be diagnosed with thyroid cancer as younger patients. Thyroid cancer was found in 41 percent of patients over 65, compared with 22 percent among younger patients, the researchers found.
Most thyroid cancer is treatable, and age should not be a barrier to treatment, noted the researchers, who were expected to present their findings Oct. 15 at the 2008 Clinical Congress of the American College of Surgeons, in San Francisco.
More information
For more on thyroid diseases, visit the U.S. National Library of Medicine.
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