They identify 63 proteins that will help in the early diagnosis of glaucoma: UNAM

Francisca Domínguez Dueñas, an academic from the Faculty of Medicine, emphasized that this study confirmed that family history, myopia and age are the main risk factors that trigger this condition among Mexicans.

As part of Global Glaucoma Week, which commemorates March 10th to 16th, says the specialist, it's a set of diseases that damage the optic nerve and can cause vision loss and total blindness.

According to a statement from the highest house of studies, the expert said that this harm is detected until the functional and structural damage of the eye reaches 50%; Therefore, it is considered the leading cause of irreversible blindness in the world.

He explained that in collaboration with the National Institute of Genomic Medicine (Inmegen) and the National Rehabilitation Institute (INR), 550 ophthalmic examinations were performed on patients under INR to check whether they had deterioration of the optic nerve.

The results, which will soon be published, showed that out of 505 samples they were in good health, 20 cases were reconfirmed (they had already been diagnosed with glaucoma) and 25 new cases.

He pointed out that with a blood sample taken from 550 patients, a proteomic study was developed, the structure and function of proteins, which allowed them to identify and compare a group of proteins expressed in patients with glaucoma, with another control group or healthy patients.

Some proteins have been found to be absent from healthy individuals and others overexpressed or in minimal amounts in patients.

He said that with these proteomic biomarkers in the blood, it would be possible to set up early tests for people who can develop primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG, the most common form and 70% of all types of glaucoma): with family history, myopia or elderly.

"High eye pressure is the main risk factor for developing glaucoma, but it is not a diagnostic criterion because we can to find patients with glaucoma with eye pressure in the normal statistical range ".

Domínguez Dueñas felt that this research would allow us to better understand the disease, to enrich the knowledge of its development, determine metabolic pathways involving neurodegeneration and, in the future, develop other therapeutic alternatives.