■ Digital ocular compression is an effective method for transiently reducing IOP — for about an hour — in patients with established, patent tube shunts. The authors wrote in the Journal of Glaucoma that to maintain this decrease in pressure, compressions would have to be performed on a scheduled basis.
Welburn et al’s masked prospective study recruited adults with POAG and an Ahmed tube shunt in only 1 eye (22 eyes of 11 patients included). Baseline IOP was determined by Goldmann applanation tonometry. A single transpalpebral digital ocular compression was applied to each eye, and IOP was periodically measured 10 times between 10 minutes and 240 minutes postcompression or until the measured IOP returned to baseline. A mean initial IOP reduction of 5.36 mmHg occurred in tube shunt eyes and 2.55 in control eyes (P=.014). Log-rank analysis demonstrated longer survival in the tube shunt group (P=.049).