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Statin use linked to higher risk of glaucoma

Key Takeaways

  • A large database study found that statin use was associated with a higher likelihood of glaucoma in adults with high blood lipids.
  • The researchers suggest that ophthalmologists should understand the cardiovascular status of patients and their use of related medications.

Statin use was associated with a higher likelihood of glaucoma in adults with hyperlipidemia (an excess of fats or lipids in the blood), even those whose “bad” cholesterol was at optimal levels, according to a study of over 79,000 patients ages 40 and older in the All of Us (AoU) Research Program. The results were reported by Victoria L. Tseng, MD, PhD, of the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California Los Angeles, and colleagues in the journal Ophthalmology Glaucoma.

“Most previous studies have suggested no association or a protective association between statins and glaucoma. Our finding of increased glaucoma in statin users suggests that things may be more complicated than previously discussed,” Tseng told MedPage Today. 

Tseng and colleagues stratified their results based on whether patients had optimal, near optimal, borderline high, high, or very high levels of LDL-C (“bad” cholesterol). “Those in the optimal and high ranges had associations between statin use and increased likelihood of glaucoma, while those in the other ranges did not have an association,” she said. “It could be that statin users had worse hyperlipidemia, which is why they needed statins. So, the statins could be a proxy for worse circulation to the optic nerve.”

If statins themselves are responsible for higher glaucoma rates, it’s not clear why that might be the case. To understand a connection, Tseng said, “we would need to more comprehensively understand the associations between different types of lipid measurements, vascular circulation in the optic nerve, and changes that result with statin use.”

For now, ophthalmologists should understand the cardiovascular status of patients and their use of related medications, Tseng noted. “These may all be factors contributing to glaucoma risk either positively or negatively and may make the glaucoma disease not behave as typically as expected.”

Edited by Miriam Kaplan, PhD

Source: Randy Dotinga, MedPage Today, August 2, 2024; see source article