STATUS OF AHMED GLAUCOMA VALVE IN MANAGEMENT OF GLAUCOMA: SUCCESS OR FAILURE

Introduction: Glaucoma valves have been used in the treatment of glaucoma in the cases where medications no longer show the appropriate results. Due to the various complications in molteno, other glaucoma valves such as Ahmed glaucoma valve (AGV) were introduced. Ahmed glaucoma valve has proved to be very useful in the management of glaucoma. This review thus summarizes how far AGV has been successful in the management of glaucoma.

Methods: Various case studies were taken into consideration in this review. The studies were retrospective amongst which some were randomized and others non-randomized. Patients with different kind of glaucoma such as Aphakic and Neovascular were selected and implanted with AGV. The results of the success rate were then compiled and summarized.

Results: AGV was found to be not a very successful implant in the management of Traumatic, Congenital and Uveitic glaucoma as compared to the Baerveldt implant. But the success was well observed in other types. It was also observed that the AGV required use of, more medications than others but it is the preferred implant with good results in the early stages.

Conclusion: Glaucoma drainage devices (GDD) are useful in the cases where the other surgical procedures fail. Sometimes it is also used as an adjunct to the medicines for the better reduction of IOP. But the device has shown complications in its long term use such as movement of the tube of the device in the eye, erosion of the tube and drainage plate through the graft tissue. However, there are ways to manage the complications of the device and hence, its use has increased.