Wang Le-Ying, Su Guan-Yu, Wei Zhen-Yu, Zhang Zi-Jun, Liang Qing-Feng
Beijing Institute of Ophthalmology, Beijing Tongren Eye Center, Beijing Tongren Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing Key Laboratory of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, Beijing 100005, China.
Int J Ophthalmol. 2020 May 18;13(5):816-821. doi: 10.18240/ijo.2020.05.18. eCollection 2020.
Glaucoma is a leading cause of irreversible blindness in the world. Intraocular pressure (IOP) plays a key role in glaucoma development and progression. Schlemm's canal (SC), an important structure of the anterior chamber angle, regulates the flow of aqueous humor and maintains IOP. Because of its special function of aqueous outflow, the SC has been intensive investigated recently. Several characteristics of SC in anatomy, physiology and pathophysiology have been revealed. Compare to normal, glaucomatous SC cells are more sensitive to substrate stiffness, have higher stiffness and and lower porosity leading to higher outflow resistance. And SC collapse caused by acute IOP increase is partially or totally reversal. With advanced inspection techniques, high-quality images of the SC can be obtained , which facilitates SC quantitative measurements clinically and allows us to investigate a new therapy paradigm for glaucoma. In this review, we summarize the basic and clinical research that focused on mechanisms of aqueous outflow resistance and SC changes in physiological, pathological, and post-treatment states.
青光眼是全球不可逆性失明的主要原因。眼压（IOP）在青光眼的发生和发展中起关键作用。小梁网（SC）是前房角的重要结构，调节房水的流动并维持眼压。由于其特殊的房水流出功能，SC最近受到了深入研究。已经揭示了SC在解剖学、生理学和病理生理学方面的几个特征。与正常情况相比，青光眼性SC细胞对基质硬度更敏感，具有更高的硬度和更低的孔隙率，导致更高的流出阻力。并且由急性眼压升高引起的SC塌陷部分或完全可逆。借助先进的检查技术，可以获得高质量的SC图像，这有助于临床对SC进行定量测量，并使我们能够研究青光眼的新治疗模式。在这篇综述中，我们总结了聚焦于房水流出阻力机制以及SC在生理、病理和治疗后状态下变化的基础和临床研究。
