Long-Term Outcomes of Selective Laser Trabeculoplasty for Open-Angle Glaucoma in the Caribbean.

Purpose: To characterize long-term clinical outcomes of monotherapy selective laser trabeculoplasty (SLT) in Afro-Caribbean patients with open-angle glaucoma (OAG).

Design: This was a post hoc analysis of nearly 8 years (median, 3.2; interquartile range, 2.1-7.1) of pooled data from the West Indies Glaucoma Laser Study and its preliminary study.

Methods: Setting: Three eye care practices in Saint Lucia and Dominica. Participants: Afro-Caribbean adults with mild-moderate OAG treated with ≤2 medications (61 in preliminary study, 72 in West Indies Glaucoma Laser Study). Intervention: Participants underwent medication washout, baseline intraocular pressure (IOP) determination, and bilateral 360-degree SLT. Participants were followed for up to 94 months. Repeat SLT was performed according to prespecified criteria. Main outcome measures: The primary outcome was mean IOP reduction from baseline. The secondary outcome was medication-free survival with SLT repeated as needed.

Results: The pooled data set included 265 eyes of 133 Afro-Caribbean participants. The mean (standard deviation) baseline IOP was 21.2 (3.4) and 21.2 (3.9) mmHg in right and left eyes, respectively. Over 8 years, the mean IOP ranged from 12.8 to 15.7 mm Hg and from 13.1 to 15.8 mm Hg, respectively (P < .0001 for every comparison with baseline). The median medication-free survival time for initial SLT was 85.4 months in both eyes. The 94-month medication-free survival of SLT repeated as needed was 71.2% and 71.7%, respectively.

Conclusions: Monotherapy SLT, repeated as needed, safely provides significant IOP reductions in most Afro-Caribbean adults with primary OAG through nearly 8 years of follow-up and has significant potential to delay or prevent glaucoma-related vision loss in black patients in low-resource regions.