Glaucoma New Zealand’s (GNZ) recent public campaign highlighted the “injustice” of the lack of alternative, preservative-free (PF), glaucoma drops in New Zealand. Now, in a bid to bolster the evidence behind these concerns, GNZ chair and glaucoma specialist, Professor Helen Danesh-Meyer is running a clinical trial to investigate the ocular impacts of the eyedrop preservative benzalkonium chloride (BAK).
After GNZ used Glaucoma Awareness Week to raise awareness of the dearth of alternative PF glaucoma drops with its members, “we received a barrage of sad stories of how their lives had been impacted”, said Pippa Martin, GNZ general manager. Some of these stories were shared in GNZ’s Eyelights magazine, including one from a woman whose father’s quality of life had been severely diminished by BAK-preserved eyedrops. “Every drop Dad was on to reduce the pressure damaged the cornea, which then meant it really hurt him to open and close (his eye). It damaged the surface of his eye so much that they thought he had this immunosuppressant condition,” she said. He was switched to an oral medication to reduce his intraocular pressure (IOP) and, although the tablet was “incredible” at controlling his IOP, her father was rendered almost helpless, she said. “He was unsteady on his feet. He would sleep all day. Some days he struggled to dress himself… I just don’t understand why if preservative damages the eye so much, we don’t just make the preservative-free ones available?”
