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No difference in Reduction of Intraocular Pressure Between Bimatoprost and Travoprost in African Americans With Glaucoma: Presented at AAO

By Earl R. Nichols

CHICAGO, IL -- October 20, 2005 -- A small study conducted in the United States has shown that African Americans with glaucoma respond as well to bimatoprost as they do to travoprost.

African Americans develop glaucoma at 4 times the rate of Caucasians and are 8 times more likely to go blind because of the disease, said principal investigator Robert Noecker, Professor of Ophthalmology, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States.

Therefore, he said, achieving maximum IOP-lowering as quickly as possible is an important goal of treatment in African Americans with glaucoma.

Dr. Noecker presented study results here on October 16^th at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO).

In the study, Dr Noecker and colleagues treated 94 African Americans with glaucoma with either travoprost (n = 45) or bimatoprost (n = 49) for 3 months and measured intraocular pressure (IOP) at baseline and at months 1, 2 and 3.

Patients were well-matched at baseline for IOP and other characteristics. Two-thirds of those receiving bimatoprost had open-angle glaucoma (OAG) and one-third had ocular hypertension (OHT), while 76% of those receiving travoprost had OAG and 24% had OHT.

Patients were washed out of any previous medications they had been taking and were instructed to use the prostaglandin analogues around 10:00 each evening. IOP measurements were taken around 10:00 AM on clinical visit days.

Mean reduction of IOP after 3 months was 7.8 mm Hg in the bimatoprost group (range 27% - 31%) and 6.9% in the travoprost group (range 25% - 28%). The between-group difference was not clinically or statistically significant but the changes in both groups were statistically significant compared with baseline.

Overall, more patients achieved IOP reductions of 20%, 25% and 30% in the bimatoprost group compared with the travoprost group. In fact, 31.9% of patients receiving bimatoprost had IOP reductions of at least 40% compared with 20.9% of those in the travoprost group.

These findings suggest that one drug can be used as effectively as the other, and this is an important consideration given that a 2001 study claimed that travoprost was more effective in African Americans than it was in Caucasians, Dr. Noecker said.

Since African Americans would benefit just as well from either drug, there should be no reason why they are treated exclusively with travoprost, he said.

These findings may be especially useful in African Americans who require significant reductions in IOP as quickly as possible to prevent glaucomatous damage, he concluded.


[Presentation title: Comparison of the IOP-Lowering Efficacy of Bimatoprost and Travoprost in Black Patients With Glaucoma or Ocular Hypertension. Abstract PO076]

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