Inflammatory diseases and glaucoma

The context in which glaucoma or hypertension in inflammatory diseases is taken care of today has to take into account the tremendous technical developments that have taken place in the last twenty past years or so. These advances are of course not limited to uveitic glaucoma or hypertension but are particularly beneficial in these complex cases where inflammatory and glaucomatous parameters have to be followed with the highest possible precision. Speaking only on the inflammatory aspect of the topic, we nowadays have at our disposal precise techniques (1) to establish choroidal inflammation and its contribution to the inflammatory problem using indocyanine green angiography; ICGA , (2) to monitor precisely the quality of the macula, using optical coherence tomography (OCT), (3) to precisely measure macular retinal sensitivity using microperimetry, (4) to precisely image the ciliary body and retro-iridal space, using ultrasound biomicroscopy (UBM), and finally (5) to exactly and objectively measure intraocular inflammation, using laser flare photometry (LFP). The problem unfortunately is that, although most of these techniques are more than twenty years old, they are far from being used in routine practice showing the profound conservatism of the medical/ophthalnological community.