HYDERABAD, Nov 3: Eminent eye specialists of the country have cautioned people against glaucoma, terming the disease ‘a silent killer’ of vision, which shows no symptoms at the start and ends up in irreversible blindness.

The ophthalmologists said in their presentations and papers at the 15th annual ophthalmic conference on “current trends in ophthalmology” at a local hotel organised by the Ophthalmological Society of Pakistan on Sunday that people should therefore take due care of their eyes the way they take care of other organs of their body.

They advised arrangements in hospitals for proper screening of people’s vision to detect the disease at formative stage. People should simultaneously be educated about it because its treatment was expensive if diagnosed at a later stage, they said.

They said that glaucoma was very common but people did not take it seriously and report it to doctors at a belated stage. They urged people to follow proper investigation procedure for their eye examination when advised by doctors.

A renowned eye expert, Prof Nadeem Hafeez Butt of Allama Iqbal Medical College (AIMC) of Lahore, said that it was important for people to take care of their eyes, which were an invaluable gift from Allah Almighty.

He said that new practices had been introduced to check pressure on eye which leads to glaucoma and advised young eye specialists to learn about the practices. “We need to highlight flaws in the methodology of our specialists because glaucoma leads to irreversible blindness,” he said.

He observed that people of a family having a history of glaucoma were vulnerable to the disease. “It has been observed that people normally approach shops of eye glasses to get their eyes checked although the shopkeeper is neither qualified nor trained,” he said.

About squint among children, Dr. Butt said that there was a perception that it was on account of some physical weakness and would normalise automatically but it was not correct. “They should get their children treated for squint, which is treatable,” he said.

Prof. Shad Mohammad of the Pakistan Institute of Community Ophthalmology of Khyber Medical University said that so many studies had been carried out to see if surgical treatment was preferable over medication or vice versa and it had been recommended that medication should be preferred over surgical way of treatment. Prof Shad said that it had been proved that treatment should begin at early stage of an eye ailment. In case of advanced glaucoma, medication and surgical treatments were to be adopted at the same time, he said.

Prof Syed Imtiaz of Rawalpindi Medical College discussed a particular tool to examine pressure on eye for correct reading. “The instrument’s reading is very accurate and helps doctors treat patient accordingly. Wrong reading or assessment can lead to improper treatment,” he said.

The chairperson of the department of ophthalmology of Hayatabad Medical Complex, Prof. Nasir Saeed, said that after cataract glaucoma was the second biggest cause for blindness among people and it required regular treatment the way people handled blood pressure of a diabetic patient.

“When it is diagnosed at a later stage its treatment becomes expensive and on the contrary when it is analysed at the right time its treatment becomes easier and cost-effective,” he said.

He said that WHO had recommended March 6 as World Glaucoma Day which was observed in Pakistan this year for the first time.

Foreign speakers Dr. Osama Ibrahim from Egypt and Dr. Santosh Honavar from India could not make it over security concerns, according to general secretary of the society’s Hyderabad chapter Dr. Manzoor Qureshi.