Neuroprotective therapy for glaucoma

Glaucoma is the second leading cause of blindness worldwide.It is mainly caused by glaucomatous optic neuropathy characterized by retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) loss, which leads to visual field loss and blindness.There are many risk factors other than intraocular pressure (IOP) elevation are thought to be responsible for RGCs damage induced by glaucoma, such as neurotrophic factors deprivation, excitotoxicity, oxidative stress and enhanced microglia activity, and these factors are essential for glaucomatous optic neuropathy, especially in normal tension glaucoma (NTG). Up to date, the major attempt of glaucoma therapy is to protect optic nerve function by lowering IOP through surgery and drugs.However, the therapies can not arrest RGCs damage although effectively lowing IOP in a number of patients.Novel study is turning to find and develop some new approaches to solve neuroprotection problem targeting to the pathogenic factors of glaucomatous optic neuropathy out of IOP.This review paper mainly focused on the neuroprotective therapies that are developed in the past few years.