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RU Glaucoma

Glaucoma is a chronic degenerative disease that affects the optic nerve and is the leading cause of irreversible blindness in the world. During the course of the disease, there is a progressive loss of retinal ganglion cells and their axons (cells that make up the optic nerve) with consequent anatomical alterations (excavation of the head of the optic nerve and loss of retinal nerve fibers). The functional consequence is represented by a progressive narrowing of the visual field which, in the absence of treatment, can lead to the complete loss of visual function. In Italy it is estimated that almost one million people suffer from glaucoma, and that about half of them are unaware of it.

Glaucoma, in fact, runs apparently asymptomatic for a long time and, often, vision problems occur suddenly. Unfortunately, when the first symptoms appear, the damage is already irreversible. Blindness caused by glaucoma can be prevented, if the disease is diagnosed and treated promptly. Although several factors have been identified that increase the risk of glaucoma, the cause of the disease remains unknown.

Key risk factors include increased eye pressure, familiarity, thin corneal thickness, and age. The major health problems related to glaucoma are linked to the need to efficiently identify affected individuals in the population, to the need to guarantee specialist visits and periodic diagnostic examinations to the identified individuals and to the development of increasingly accurate technologies in making increasingly earlier diagnosis of the disease.

From a scientific point of view, the main fields of interest concern the understanding of the mechanisms underlying the onset and progression of damage, the search for disease biomarkers, the development of technologies that allow a certain and early diagnosis and the development of new therapeutic strategies both medical and surgical.

 

Tra le numerose collaborazioni e progetti di ricerca, il laboratorio ha ottenuto importanti risultati nel 2023, inclusa la caratterizzazione del proteoma delle cellule immunitarie circolanti isolate da pazienti con glaucoma. Inoltre, sono stati raggiunti diversi obiettivi che hanno portato alla pubblicazione di 6 articoli scientifici.