[Strategies for monitoring 24-hour intraocular pressure curve: 41 cases of prospective clinical study].

OBJECTIVE To investigate accuracy of the currently used strategies for intraocular pressure measurements for reflecting actual 24-hour intraocular pressure fluctuations. METHODS From September, 2018 to January, 2019, the patients with a suspected diagnosis of primary open angle glaucoma at our hospital were prospectively enrolled to receive 24-hour intraocular pressure monitoring using a Goldmann tonometer. With the intraocular pressure measurements at 0:00, 2:00, 5:00, 7:00, 8:00, 10:00, 11:00, 14:00, 16:00, 18:00, 20:00, and 22:00 as the gold standard (strategy 1), we compared the measurements taken at 5:00, 7:00, 10:00, 14:00, 18:00, and 22:00 (strategy 2) and at 8:00, 11:00, 14:00, and 16:00 (strategy 3) for their accuracy in reflecting 24-h intraocular pressure fluctuations. RESULTS A total of 41 patients (82 eyes) were enrolled in this study. The peak intraocular pressures measured using the 3 strategies were 21.09±4.15 mmHg, 20.54±4.10 mmHg, and 19.91±4.38 mmHg, respectively, showing significant differences among them (P < 0.05). The trough intraocular pressures measured by the 3 strategies were also significantly different (13.93±3.38 mmHg, 14.63±3.49 mmHg, and 15.46±3.63 mmHg, respectively; P < 0.05). The co-occurrence of the peak intraocular pressure was 74.39% between strategies 1 and 2 and 43.90% between strategies 1 and 3. The sensitivity of strategies 2 and 3 for detecting 24-h intraocular pressure fluctuations was 55.56% and 36.11%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS For suspected cases of glaucoma, intraocular pressure measurements at 4 and 6 time points of a day can not precisely reflect the actual range of intraocular pressure fluctuations, and may lead to a missed diagnosis of glaucoma.