Community Screening for Pseudo Exfoliation Syndrome

Abstract

Background: Like any other primary open angle glaucoma, glaucoma with pseudo-exfoliation syndrome too goes unnoticed until the last stage when one becomes completely blind. So, it would be logical to detect this disease in the community at the earliest so as to minimize and prevent the visual loss. Conducting a population based screening camps for high-risk groups would be one of the best ways to do so. Therefore, a study was designed to screen the pockets of gurung community against the control group of non-gurung community. Methods: This survey followed an analytical, cross-sectional design. A village of Ghandruk at Kaski district (case) and Khopasi of Kavre district (control) were taken purposively as study areas. 350 individuals in each group who were 30 years and above were screened. All data were fed into the computer and data analysis was done with the help of the Oracle 9 i and front end developer 2000. Results: Thirty four of them were found to have pseudo-exfoliation syndrome with or without glaucoma that accounted for 10.21% of total sampled population. Out of 34 cases, 10 of them had associated glaucoma and 11 of others had independent glaucoma accounting for 3.30% of total. Apart from them, 19 (5.71%) individuals were suspected to have primary open angle glaucoma and 12 (3.60%) primary angle closure suspects. Out of 34 cases having pseudo-exfoliation, 33 of them belonged to a single ethnic group "The Gurungs" and only one of them was Brahmin. In contrary, only 1.38% of the total screened population had glaucoma in Khopasi and 0.8% of the population was suspected to have primary open angle glaucoma. Pseudo-exfoliation was seen more frequently in male than in the females accounting for 64.7% of total. Conclusions: Pseudo-exfoliation syndrome was more prevalent among Gurungs than other ethnic groups. This disease predominantly affected males.