Glaucoma: What Every Patient Should Know: A Guide from Dr. Harry Quigley

If you or a member of your family has been told that you have glaucoma, or, if you have glaucoma and want to be sure that the treatment you’re receiving is right for you, this patient-oriented guide was designed to answer the many questions you may have. The guide gives authoritative answers, easily understood explanations, helpful suggestions, and life-style advice. It won’t matter if you are not a medical specialist, since it is written in plain English. Most glaucoma patients retain good vision and live a normal life. The solutions given can take the stress out of dealing with glaucoma and should maximize the chance that no further injury to your ability to see will occur. There is good evidence that patients who try to learn more about their medical care do better in the long run. The author is Dr. Harry A. Quigley, Director of the Glaucoma Center of Excellence of the Wilmer Ophthalmological Institute, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He has 40 years’ experience caring for glaucoma, researching its treatments, and has performed 10,000 medical and surgical procedures for this disease. His 350 published papers on glaucoma represent the work that is most quoted by other eye doctors in the last 30 years. He was the Editor-in-Chief of the premier vision research journal, Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science. No other living ophthalmologist has received the Friedenwald Award (ARVO), the Doyne Medal (Oxford Ophthalmological Congress), the Jackson Lectureship (AAO), and the American Glaucoma Society Lectureship. The guide has quick “Take Home” summaries at the start of each section with the most important information. For those wishing to know much more, detailed explanations, drawings and photographs follow. The sections are designed to answer the questions that patients ask, as well as the questions that they should have asked. For those who know little about their glaucoma, it begins with a simple introduction to the disease. However, those who want in depth information will find discussions of how the disease is diagnosed, what the treatment options are, and how to live a normal life with glaucoma. There are not perfect answers to every question about glaucoma. Where there is controversy, the different sides of the issue are presented to help you and your doctor to make the better choice. There is consideration given to alternative approaches to therapy. There is no cure for glaucoma, and we cannot yet restore vision once it is lost. The guide presents ways to continue life at a high level, whatever the stage of glaucoma.

Dr. Quigley was born in St. Louis and is a graduate of Harvard College and Johns Hopkins Medical School. After ophthalmic residency at the Wilmer Institute, he did a fellowship at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, Miami. He became the A. Edward Maumenee Professor of Ophthalmology in 1994, directing both the Glaucoma Center of Excellence and the Dana Center for Preventive Ophthalmology at Wilmer. He was a founding member of the American Glaucoma Society. He was elected to 5 year terms as chief executive officer of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) and Editor-in-Chief of Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science. He has published over 400 peer-reviewed articles, and his reports are the most cited in the ophthalmic literature over the last 30 years (Archives of Ophthalmology, 2007). He has been honored with the Friedenwald Award by ARVO, the Doyne Medal by the Oxford Ophthalmological Congress, the Leslie Dana Medal by the St. Louis Society for the Blind, awards from the European Society of Ophthalmology (Prix Jules Francois), Ophthalmological Society of Scotland (Mackenzie Medal), Australian Society of Ophthalmology (Gregg Medal), Irish Ophthalmological Society (Mooney Medal), and the New York Academy of Sciences (Lewis Rudin Prize). He has given 40 named lectures, including the 66th Edward Jackson Lecture (American Academy of Ophthalmology). Dr. Quigley has trained 55 glaucoma clinician--scientists who practice in the U.S. and worldwide. His research has improved the early diagnosis of glaucoma and has developed instruments and techniques to identify glaucoma damage better. His investigations demonstrated the degree of glaucoma damage that precedes present detection methods. He was the first to report on long-term success with laser iridotomy. His suturing technique for trabeculectomy has been widely adopted. He has participated in pioneering studies of the epidemiology, morbidity and progression rate of glaucoma and other eye disease in American, African, Asian, and Hispanic populations, serving as a consultant to the World Health Organization. He conceptualized new roles for iris and choroidal volume change as risk factors in angle closure glaucoma. In the laboratory, he has demonstrated successful gene therapy to protect retinal ganglion cells from experimental glaucoma, and developed glaucoma models in monkeys, rats and mice.