Glaucoma patients should be asked about use of alternative medicine

COS 2012, July 3 - A sizeable minority of glaucoma patients use complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) therapies, which may affect both the course of the disease and compliance with other treatments, researchers reported.

Dr. Tenley Bower from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Erlangen, Germany and colleagues found that only 26% of 241 Canadian ophthalmologists surveyed asked patients about their use of CAM therapies. This includes doctors who responded "always," "mostly" or "sometimes." Doctors in practice less than 20 years were significantly more likely to ask patients about CAM than those in practice more than 20 years.

Most respondents (62%) do not discourage CAM therapies. Younger ophthalmologists and those with fewer years of practice were found to be less likely to discourage these therapies.

When asked whether CAM therapies affect patient compliance with traditional glaucoma therapies, 17% said they did. Ophthalmologists practising in rural areas were significantly more likely to believe that compliance was affected by CAM than those in urban areas or those in academic practices.

Overall, 46% of respondents indicated that they believed that CAM use sometimes results in morbidity; however, those in practice less than 20 years were significantly less likely to believe this than those in practice for more than 20 years.

Findings showed that only 9% of respondents actually recommend CAM therapies to glaucoma patients, with those in practice less than 20 years shown to be significantly more likely to recommend these therapies. Ginkgo biloba was the most commonly recommended alternative at 21%, followed by exercise, antioxidant vitamins and a healthy diet.