|
 Dr. Lee is the founder and owner of Regrowth LLC, a company based in Los Angeles and dedicated to the treatment of hair loss. He has been developing innovative products and treating hair loss sufferers for the past 16 years. Dr. Lee is the creator of the Xandrox line of hair loss treatments.
Important Note: Due a busy schedule, Dr. Lee cannot answer any new questions at this time; however, he will be providing high quality answers to questions he receives from his own practice exclusively to Morphollica.com regularly
anonymous
2005-09-25
Glaucoma and Minoxidil
A patient recently wrote that he recently read an article that
says there is a link between increased pressure in the eye (glaucoma)
and the use of Rogaine/minoxidil. Is there, in fact, any relationship
between minoxidil and glaucoma?
Not really. The occurrence of glaucoma is a known, albeit
rare, contraindication for systemic use of the drug class known as
nitrates (e.g. nitroglycerin), a long-used class of potent
vasodilators. Whereas minoxidil is a potent vasodilator, it is not one
of the nitrate drugs.
Whenever glaucoma is listed as a contraindication to the use of
any drug, one must ask oneself to which form of glaucoma the warning is
applicable. The answer, 100% of the time, is angle closure or narrow
angle glaucoma. Unfortunately, unless the condition is diagnosed by an
ophthalmologist, it is usually impossible to know that someone has a
propensity toward this disorder, because diagnosis requires a special
technique known as gonioscopy. When angle closure glaucoma is
diagnosed, the only appropriate form of treatment is laser iridotomy,
which is completely curative in well over 95% of cases.
If, on the other hand you have the run-of-the-mill open
angle glaucoma, minoxidil can actually be beneficial in decreasing the
intraocular pressure, whether applied topically or systemically. In
studies of glaucoma filtering surgery done on rabbit eyes, topical
minoxidil applied to the subconjunctival surface during surgery
prevented fibroblast proliferation, and thus bleb scarring. In human
studies, minoxidil inhibits keratocyte proliferation by a nontoxic
mechanism. As such, minoxidil might be particularly useful for
modulating corneal wound healing following excimer laser photorefractive
keratectomy (LASIX surgery)*.
Bottom Line: Minoxidil has a clean record in regards to any
association with glaucoma and could potentially be beneficial in this
condition.
*The Effect of Minoxidil on Keratocyte Proliferation in Cell
Culture, Stephen D. McLeod, Nishat P. Alvi, Lili Zhou, Yagnesh Dave,
John W. Chandler, Richard Fiscella, Ophthalmic Research
1998;30:263-270.
Richard Lee, M.D.
T. Adam Bowen, D.O.
Regrowth, LLC
Click here to return to Dr. Richard Lee, MD's Q&A page.
|
