A COMPARATIVE STUDY BETWEEN SMALL INCISION TRABECULECTOMY AND CONVENTIONAL TRABECULECTOMY IN THE MANAGEMENT OF GLAUCOMA

Small incision trabeculectomy avoiding Tenon’s capsule includes the formation of a filtration fistula without any dissection of the Tenon’s capsule. This minimizes trauma to Tenon’s capsule which induces scarring and failure of the operation.The aim of this thesis was to evaluate the potential advantages and disadvantage, success rate and complications of this relatively new procedure for glaucoma surgery in comparison to conventional trabeculectomy.The study included forty eyes of 30 patients who had uncontrolled primary open angle glaucoma. Ten patients had bilateral surgery. Patients were selected at random to have either conventional trabeculectomy (Group 1) or small incision trabeculectomy (SIT) avoiding Tenon’s capsule (Group 2). Each group included 20 eyes.Of the 30 patients included in this study, 17 were women (56.7%) and 13 were men (43.3%). The age of the patients ranged between 37 and 67 years (mean = 47.4 years). The follow-up period ranged between 6 and 11 months (mean = 7.2 months).There was a deterioration of visual acuity (loss of more than 2 lines of best corrected visual acuity) in 2 eyes (10%) in group 1 and in 2 eyes (10%) in group 2. All of these eyes had cataract progression after surgery.