glaucoma research foundation logo in black
Filter by Categories
Eye Health
Personal Stories
Facts & Stats
Lifestyle Tips
Eye Exams
Treatments
Q&A
Research Updates
News
Filter by Categories
Eye Health
Personal Stories
Facts & Stats
Lifestyle Tips
Eye Exams
Treatments
Q&A
Research Updates
News

Can Glaucoma Be Cured?

We hope to one day restore vision lost from glaucoma, but that can't presently be done.

BACK TO BLOG HOME

researcher-looks-through-microscope_900
researcher-looks-through-microscope_900

Can Glaucoma Be Cured?

We hope to one day restore vision lost from glaucoma, but that can't presently be done.

Existing glaucoma treatments slow the process for most patients so no meaningful vision loss occurs in their lifetime. There are, however, several potential avenues to a cure.

Innovative Drug Delivery and Neuroprotection

If glaucoma medicine could be given only once or twice per year, it would be more effective and patients would no longer need to take eye drops every day. Several agents could be placed on or in the eye, including long-lasting drugs that lower eye pressure, or modified virus particles that put new genes inside the eye cells to slow glaucoma damage.

Researchers have already successfully tested glaucoma gene therapy in laboratory models. Gene therapy is one of several approaches, called neuroprotection, to preserve existing vision. There are several potential neuroprotective drugs, but no definite benefit has been shown in human trials yet.

Optic Nerve Cell Regeneration

For those who have very significant vision loss from glaucoma, the hope is that we will one day restore vision lost due to death of retinal ganglion cells. These nerve cells do not normally regrow, so to improve vision, we must put back nerve cells where previous ones were, link them up with the other retinal nerve cells they normally get information from, and grow a fiber up to the brain’s next vision relay station. Connections need to be made that produce useful vision, without messing up existing connections for the vision that hasn’t already been lost.

Initial Steps

25 years ago, scientists thought it would be impossible ever to restore vision in glaucoma. Since then researchers have accomplished some initial steps. We can get new nerve cells from a patient’s own eye. Once we get some of these progenitor cells out (surgically) safely, we can grow thousands of new ones from them (Figure 1). Since they are the patient’s own cells, they won’t be rejected.

laboratory image of progenitor cells
Figure 1: New progenitor cells produced from existing cells in the eye growing in culture dish. These may someday become replacement cells needed to restore vision lost in glaucoma.

Progenitor cells from the eye and from bone marrow have been tested as replacements in the eye, and have lived there for brief periods.

The next steps are to connect them to the existing retinal cells and grow a fiber up to the brain. We believe this will involve providing a path for the new fibers using a piece of nerve to connect the eye and brain.

 

 

Article by Harry A. Quigley, MD.
First posted on September 1, 2011; Last reviewed March 24, 2022.

image_print
quigley photo
Harry A. Quigley, MD.

Dr. Quigley is the A. Edward Maumenee Professor and Director of the Glaucoma Center of Excellence at the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins, in Baltimore, Maryland. He has participated in glaucoma studies worldwide and published over 4,500 peer-reviewed articles.

back of mailing envelope. snail mail icon.

Print Subscription

We will mail Gleams anywhere in the United States and Canada, but we do not mail internationally. Please sign up for the email edition if you live outside of the US or Canada.

Name(Required)
Address(Required)
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

You can unsubscribe at any time. GRF will not share your personal information with any other organizations. Please see our Privacy Policy for further information.

folded paper airplane. email icon.

E-mail Subscription

Name
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

You can unsubscribe at any time. GRF will not share your personal information with any other organizations. Please see our Privacy Policy for further information.