Efficacy and safety of brimonidine and dorzolamide for intraocular pressure lowering in glaucoma and ocular hypertension.

ABSTRACTBackground: Brimonidine and dorzolamide are intraocular pressure (IOP)-lowering medications most commonly used in second-line treatment of glaucoma and ocular hypertension.Scope: An evidence-based review of comparative clinical trials of brimonidine and dorzolamide was undertaken to determine the relative efficacy and safety of these drugs in reducing IOP. Using the keywords ‘brimonidine’ and ‘dorzolamide’, all articles describing such trials from September 1966 to July 2007 were found in MEDLINE and EMBASE.Findings: In all identified studies, brimonidine and dorzolamide were both found to provide significant IOP reduction from treated or untreated baseline levels. Results of eight trials reported to date indicate that brimonidine produced either a lower treated IOP or greater pressure reduction from baseline than dorzolamide at one or more measured timepoints, and provided comparable IOP lowering over all other measurements. Differences between the IOP reductions provided by brimonidine and dorzo...