[A statistical comparison study of glaucoma in the Third Affiliated Hospital of China Medical College and Kyushu University].

We classified 331 glaucoma patients who visited the eye clinic of the Third Affiliated Hospital of China Medical College during the 2 year period from January 1985 to December 1986 according to the type of glaucoma. The results were compared with those obtained from 275 glaucoma patients who visited the eye clinic of Kyushu University during an overlapping period of 2 years, from January 1986 to December 1987. Patients with glaucoma were found to comprise 1.5% of the 22,869 outpatients in the Third Affiliated Hospital of China Medical College, and 1.8% of the 15,585 outpatients in Kyushu University. The distribution of various types was as follows: primary angle closure glaucoma (76.4%), primary open angle glaucoma (4.8%), secondary glaucoma (11.8%), exfoliation glaucoma (0) and congenital glaucoma (5.7%) in the Third Affiliated Hospital of China Medical College, and primary angle closure glaucoma (34.5%), primary open angle glaucoma (12.7%), secondary glaucoma (22.2%), exfoliation glaucoma (14.9%) and congenital glaucoma (10.9%) in Kyushu University. The present results suggest that the incidence of primary angle closure glaucoma in China is higher than in Japan, and that the incidence of primary angle closure glaucoma is higher than that of primary open angle glaucoma in these two countries. It is of interest that the high incidence of primary angle closure glaucoma in China and Japan coincides with the study in Canadian Eskimos. The incidences of secondary glaucoma and exfoliation glaucoma in Japan are higher than in China. This might be due to differences in diagnostic facilities in the two countries.