Correlation between intraocular pressure and blood pressure in North Indian subjects

Aim: To find out the correlation between Intraocular pressure and systemic blood pressure in adult North Indian subjects. Material and method: The study included 300 healthy individuals above 40 years of age. On the basis of BP the subjects were divided into three groups i.e. non hypertensive, pre-hypertensive and hypertensive. After careful history taking and general examination BP and IOP recording was done on all the subjects. The observations were subjected to statistical comparison Result: The mean IOP of non-hypertensive group was 14.17 ±2.14 mm of Hg. The mean IOP of pre-hypertensive group was 15.45±2.07 mm of Hg and that of hypertensive group was 17.93 ± 2.22 mm of Hg. The mean IOP was found to increase with increase in systemic blood pressure. The difference was statistically significant (p< 0.001). Conclusion: Our observation reveals that there exists a positive correlation between IOP and BP. Evaluating our observations in light of available literature we concluded that high blood pressure is a risk factor for development of raised IOP which can lead to glaucoma. Periodic checking of IOP in hypertensive subjects and vice-versa is the key to the prevention of irreversible blindness due to glaucoma. Thus population based screening would reduce the burden of blindness due to glaucoma.