Abstract
Thirty-three ocular hypertensive patients (21 with primary open angle glaucoma and 12 glaucoma suspects) were randomly assigned to receive either timolol, levobunolol or betaxolol in one eye. Pulsatile ocular blood flow (POBF) was measured before treatment (baseline) and 2 hours after drop administration. After 1 week of regular twice-daily dosage, POBF was measured again both immediately before and 2 hours after drop instillation. All measurements were made by an investigator masked to treatment. POBF increased by 11% (p = 0.09) at week 0 after levobunolol administration, and by 22% (p = 0.20) at week 1 before drop administration compared with baseline. It dropped by 23% and 25% (p = 0.04 and 0.06, respectively) before and after betaxolol administration at week 1. Although POBF was reduced in the timolol group, this change was not significant. These results can not be explained uniformly by changes in intraocular pressure or blood pressure. The relevance of these measurements to visual function in glaucoma is not known.
Similar content being viewed by others
Article PDF
References
Odberg T . Visual field prognosis in advanced glaucoma. Acta Ophthalmol 1987;Suppl 182:27–9.
Vogel R, Tipping R, Kulaga SF, Clineschmidt CM . Changing therapy from timolol to betaxolol: effect on intraocular pressure in selected patients with glaucoma. Arch Ophthalmol 1989;107:1303–7.
Van Buskirk EM, Cioffi GA . Glaucomatous optic neuropathy. Am J Ophthalmol 1992;113:447–52.
Weinreb RN . Why study the microcirculation in glaucoma? J Glaucoma 1992;1:145–7.
Alm A, Bill A . Ocular circulation. In: Moses RA, Hart WM, editors. Adler's physiology of the eye: clinical application, vol. 8. St Louis: CV Mosby, 1987:193–203.
Dawidek GMB, Robinson MI . Beta-adrenergic receptors in human anterior optic nerve: an autoradiographic study. Eye 1993;7:122–6.
Grajewski AL, Ferrari-dileo G, Feuer WJ, Anderson DR . Beta-adrenergic-responsiveness of choroidal vasculature. Ophthalmology 1991;98:989–95.
Van Buskirk EM, Bacon DR, Fahrenbach WH . Ciliary vasoconstriction after topical adrenergic drugs. Am J Ophthalmol 1990;109:511.
Langham ME . Ocular blood flow and visual loss in glaucomatous eyes. In: Kreiglestein GK, editor. Glaucoma update III. Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag, 1987:58–66.
Silver DM, Farrell RA, Langham ME, et al. Estimation of pulsatile ocular blood flow from intraocular pressure. Acta Ophthalmol 1989;Suppl 191:25–9.
Krakow CE . Calculation of the pulsatile ocular blood flow. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sei 1992;33:2754–6.
Bosem ME, Lusky M, Weinreb RN . Short term effects of levobunolol on ocular pulsatile blood flow. Am J Ophthalmol 1992;114:280–6.
Eisenlohr J, Langham ME, Maumenee AE . Mano-metric studies of the pressure/volume relation in living and enucleated eyes of individual subjects. Br J Ophthalmol 1962;46:536–48.
Alm A, Bill A . Ocular and optic nerve flow at normal and increased intraocular pressure in monkeys (Macaca irus): a study with radioactive labelled microspheres including flow determination in brain and some other tissues. Exp Eye Res 1973;15:15.
Michelson G, Gierth K, Priem R, Laumer R . Blood velocity in the ophthalmic artery normal subjects and patients with endophthalmitis. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci 1990;3:1919.
James CB, Trew DR, Clark K, Smith SE . Factors influencing the ocular pulse-axial length. Graefes Arch Clin Exp Ophthalmol 1991;229:341.
Yamazaki S, Baba H, Tokoro T . Effects of timolol and carteolol on ocular pulsatile blood flow. Acta Soc Ophthalmol Jpn 1992;96:973–7.
Yoshida A, Feke GT, Ogasawara H, et al. Effect of timolol on human retinal, choroidal and optic nerve head circulation. Ophthalmic Res 1991;23:162–70.
Trew DR, Smith SE . Postural studies in pulsatile ocular blood flow. II. Chronic open angle glaucoma. Br J Ophthalmol 1991;75:71–5.
Bucci MG, Pescosolido N, Mariotti SP, Lentini FM . Comportamento dell'ampiezza del polso oculare dopo instillazione di beta-bloccanti. Boll Ocul 1990;69:285–97.
Boles Carenini B, Brogliatti B, Boles Carenini A . Pulsatile ocular blood flow and antiglaucomatous drugs. New Trends Ophthalmol 1992;7:195–200.
Di Carlo FJ, Leinweber FJ, Szpiech JM, Davidson WF . Metabolism of 1-bunolol. Clin Pharmacol Ther 1977;22:858.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Morsman, C., Bosem, M., Lusky, M. et al. The effect of topical beta-adrenoceptor blocking agents on pulsatile ocular blood flow. Eye 9, 344–347 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1038/eye.1995.67
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/eye.1995.67
Keywords
This article is cited by
-
Effects of antiglaucoma drugs on blood flow of optic nerve heads and related structures
Japanese Journal of Ophthalmology (2013)
-
The effect of once-daily latanoprost on intraocular pressure and pulsatile ocular blood flow in normal tension glaucoma
Eye (1999)