Diabetic hemorrhagic glaucoma was seen in forty inpatients of the Joslin Clinic in the ten-year period ending 1964. Twenty patients were juvenile-onset and twenty were maturity-onset diabetics. The average duration of diabetes was 20.8 years for both groups. Pain and blindness were the most common presenting symptoms. Rubeosis iridis and extensive proliferative diabetic retinopathy were seen in every glaucomatous eye. Other evidence of angiopathy (nephropathy, neuropathy, and peripheral vascular impairment) coexisted in many of the patients.
A study of these patients indicates that (a) diabetic hemorrhagic glaucoma is most often seenin association with proliferative diabetic retinopathy, and (b) its development portends a serious loss of useful vision. Pertinent microscopic, histochemical, and experimental observations are cited to support the view that impaired ocular blood flow with resulting retinal hypoxia is a common feature of this disorder, disposing the diabetic iris to the development of rubeosis and subsequent anterior chamber hemorrhage leading to glaucoma.
