In recent times,
glaucoma has become the leading cause of
acquired blindness among the Japanese. As
visual disorders markedly decrease the quality of life (QOL), it is important to develop new strategies for preventing the onset of and delaying the progression of
glaucoma.
Glaucoma has long since been recognized as a serious disease caused by increased intraocular pressure and
subsequent injury and death of the neuronal
retinal cells. Therefore, numerous studies have focused on the mechanisms that damage neuronal cells and on the drugs that possess protective effects in reversing this damage. However, injury to the retinal vasculature has been recently shown in animal models of
glaucoma. Hence, thus far, only few papers have been published on
retinal circulation in
glaucoma. These study results have indicated that
retinal circulation is altered in
glaucoma and that this vascular abnormality may be the cause of and/or may accelerate
retinal degeneration. In this report, we have attempted to elucidate the mechanisms of
retinal circulation and explore novel drugs for the treatment of
retinal circulation disorders. We have also introduced here our previous research results on
retinal circulation. We reported that the drugs that improved
retinal circulation, by
intravitreal injection, in the rat model of
glaucoma also inhibited
retinal nerve injury, thereby representing possibilities that they might be novel candidate drugs for
glaucoma prevention and treatment.