■ Compared to White patients, Black patients have a dramatically higher risk of advanced vision loss after a new diagnosis of primary open-angle glaucoma, according to study a from New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai (NYEE). Being of African heritage is an independent risk factor for vision loss and should prompt increased glaucoma screening in this population, the authors wrote in Translational Vision Science and Technology. In what they said is a first, an AI-based algorithm, called archetype analysis, was used to analyze the earliest record of visual field loss in new-onset glaucoma cases in 3 population-based databases.

The study has implications for glaucoma screening for Black patients, who are already known to be at increased risk, said senior author Louis R. Pasquale, MD, FARVO, director of the NYEE Eye and Vision Research Institute, in a news release. “Screening earlier in life could significantly increase the chance of detecting glaucoma and slowing down progression before it reaches one of the advanced patterns shown in our research,” he added.

The team analyzed nearly 210,000 participants older than 40 years — none had glaucoma at baseline — and 1,946 patients developed glaucoma. Blacks comprised 1.3% of the study but had a nearly twofold increased risk of early visual field loss archetypes, and a sixfold higher risk for advanced field loss archetypes than Whites.