Abstract
This study investigated the effect of betaxolol, a β1 selective blocker, on the retinal circulation in 10 patients with ocular hypertension. In a masked randomised fashion, one eye of each subject received betaxolol and the fellow eye received placebo (hypromellose). Retinal blood flow (RBF) was determined in a major temporal vein of each eye just prior to instillation of drops and 2 h later, using laser Doppler velocimetry and monochromatic fundus photography. There was an increase of 15.0% in RBF (p = 0.03) in the betaxolol-treated eyes. No significant change was observed in the placebo-treated eyes. Intraocular pressure was reduced by 27.7% in the treated eyes, resulting in an increase of 16.9% in perfusion pressure (p = 0.02) compared with an 8.4% increase in placebo- treated eyes (p = 0.15). This study demonstrated that betaxolol increases RBF in eyes with ocular hypertension; this increase is probably related to the increase in perfusion pressure.
Similar content being viewed by others
Article PDF
References
Reiss GR, Brubaker RF . The mechanism of betaxolol, a new ocular hypotensive agent. Ophthalmology 1983;90:1369–72.
Primary glaucoma. In: Kolker AE, Hetherington J Jr, editors. Becker Shaffer's diagnosis and therapy of the glaucomas. St Louis: CV Mosby, 1983:234.
Kanski JJ . Glaucoma. In: Clinical ophthalmology. London: Butterworth, 1989: chapter 7.
Henkind P . New observations on the radial peripapillary capillaries. Invest Ophthalmol 1967;6:103–8.
Grunwald JE . Effect of timolol maleate on the retinal circulation of human eyes with ocular hypertension. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci 1990;31:521–6.
Riva CE, Grunwald JE, Sinclair SH, O'Keefe K . Fundus camera based retinal LDV. Appl Optics 1981;20:117–20.
Feke GT, Tagawa H, Deupree DM, Goger DG, Sebag J, Weiter JJ . Blood flow in the normal human retina. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci 1989;30:58–65.
Grunwald JE, Riva CE, Sinclair SH, Brucker AJ, Petrig BL . LDV study of retinal circulation in diabetes mellitus. Arch Ophthalmol 1986;104:991–6.
Sullivan P, Davis G, Kohner E . Methodology and reproduc-ibility of bidirectional laser Doppler velocimetry. Folia Ophthalmol 1990;15:99–101.
Brinchmann HO, Engvold O . Microphotometry of the blood column and the light streak on retinal vessels in fundus photographs. Acta Ophthalmol Suppl (Copenh) 1986;95:861–8.
Chen HC, Patel V., Wiek J, Rassam SMB, Kohner EM . Vessel diameter changes during the cardiac cycle. Eye 1994;8:97–103.
Damon DN, Duling BR . A comparison between mean blood velocities and centre-line red cell velocities as measured with a mechanical image streaking velocimeter. Microvasc Res 1979;17:330–2.
Strauss AL, Kedra AW . Experiences with a new procedure for the measurement of the ophthalmic artery pressure: oph-thalmomanometry-Doppler. Med Instrumentation 1987;21:255–61.
Chio GC, Chen YJ . Effects of D- and L-isomers of timolol on retinal and choroidal blood flow in ocular hypertensive rabbit eyes. J Ocul Pharmacol 1992;8:183–90.
Grunwald JE . Effect of topical timolol on the human retinal circulation. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci 1986;27:1713–9.
Grunwald JE . Effect of timolol maleate on the retinal circulation of human eyes with ocular hypertension. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci 1990;31:521–6.
Pillunat L, Stodtmeister R . Effect of different antiglaucoma-tous drugs on ocular perfusion pressures. J Ocul Pharmacol 1988;4:231–42.
Wolf S . Timolol leads to increased retinal perfusion effects of beta blockers on retinal haemodynamics. Klin Monatsbly Augenheilkd 1989;195:229–31.
Riva CE, Grunwald JE, Petrig BL . Autoregulation of human retinal blood flow: an investigation with laser Doppler velocimetry. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci 1986;27:1706–12.
Grunwald JE, Riva CE, Stone RA, Keates EU, Petrig BL . Retinal autoregulation in open-angle glaucoma. Ophthalmology 1984;91:1690–4.
Pillunat LE, Stodtmeister R, Wilmanns I, Christ T . New aspects in pressure tolerance of the optic nerve head. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci 1985;26(ARVO suppl):223.
Forster BA, Ferrari-Dileo G, Anderson DR . Adrenergic alpha-1 and alpha-2 binding sites in bovine retinal blood vessels. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci 1987;28:1741–6.
Hoste AM, Boels PJ, Brutsaert DL, de Laey JJ . Effect of alpha-1 and beta agonists on contraction of bovine retinal resistance arteries in vitro. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci 1989;30(ARVO suppl):44.
Martin XD, Rabineau PA . Vasoconstrictive effect of topical timolol on human retinal arteries. Graefes Arch Clin Exp Ophthalmol 1989;227:526–30.
Kelly-Hester R, Chan Z, Becker EJ, McLoughlin M, DeSan-tis L . The direct vascular relaxing action of betaxolol, car-teolol and timolol in porcine long posterior ciliary arteries. Surv Ophthalmol 38 (Suppl) 1994 (in press).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Gupta, A., Chen, H., Rassam, S. et al. Effect of betaxolol on the retinal circulation in eyes with ocular hypertension: A pilot study. Eye 8, 668–671 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1038/eye.1994.165
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/eye.1994.165
Keywords
This article is cited by
-
Effects of antiglaucoma drugs on blood flow of optic nerve heads and related structures
Japanese Journal of Ophthalmology (2013)
-
Comparison of short- and long-term effects of betaxolol and timolol on human retinal circulation
Eye (1998)