Intraocular pressure-lowering effects of selective laser trabeculoplasty for normal tension glaucoma patients in Chinese.

To evaluate the efficacy of selective laser trabeculoplasty (SLT) on intraocular pressure (IOP) for the normal tension glaucoma (NTG) in Chinese. Consecutive patients with NTG treated with monocular SLT for eye with higher IOP were enrolled. IOP was evaluated for each patient before SLT, 1 h, 1 week, 1, 3, 6 months, 1 and 2 years after treatment. The treatment success was defined as IOP reduction from the preoperative IOP by 20%. Thirty-two patients with 18.47 ± 9.98 months follow-up were eligible for analyses. The mean IOP reduction after SLT were 2.80 mmHg (15.76%), 2.60 mmHg (15.57%), 2.51 mmHg (15.06%), 3.42 mmHg (20.51%), and 2.41 mmHg (14.46%) at 1, 3, 6 months, 1 and 2 years post-SLT respectively for the treated eyes. While there were 1.39 mmHg (8.94%) and 2.13 mmHg (13.71%) IOP reduction in the fellow eyes at 1 month and 1 year post-SLT respectively. There was positive correlation of IOP reduction between SLT eyes and the fellow eyes (r = 0.6503, P < 0.0001). The absolute success rate for SLT treated eyes mounted to 41.38% at 6 months and decreased to 18.18% at 2 years post-SLT. The success was associated with the number of medicines, pre-IOP and the IOP reduction at 1 and 3 months after SLT. SLT has an effect on lowering IOP for NTG patients in Chinese in both SLT eyes and the follow eyes with insufficient efficacy of anti-glaucoma medications, although the effect was not sustained with a longer follow-up.