First-of-its-kind glaucoma treatment now being used in Massachusetts

By Jessica Brown

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    MILFORD, Massachusetts (WCVB) — There is a potential breakthrough for patients who could be in danger of losing their vision thanks to a first-of-its-kind treatment now being used in Massachusetts.

Kevin Ratcliffe is a glaucoma patient at Cataract Surgery Center in Milford and is one of the first in the Greater Boston area to receive a newly-approved device that automatically administers drops to treat glaucoma.

The goal is to address a common problem among glaucoma patients.

“I don’t always get the drops in the eye, and then after a while, I just forgot about them and whatnot. So that’s part of this problem,” said Ratcliffe.

Glaucoma is an incurable eye disease that damages your eye’s optic nerve. It usually happens when fluid builds up and increases pressure inside the eye.

“I even had my wife and my son try to help me. That was a little better, but not exactly a hundred percent,” said Ratcliffe.

But Ratcliffe says it’s been a challenge to stay consistent.

“It didn’t want to go in the eye and stay. It just went right down the cheek,” he said.

It’s something Dr. Roger Kaldawy at Cataract Surgery Center hears from many of his patients.

“They cannot squeeze the drops, they cannot remember the drops, there is no one to help them with their drops. This is a big challenge because when we think that we are prescribing glaucoma drops, most of the patients, up to 50%, 60%, are really not using them consistently,” said Kaldawy.

Now, a newly Food and Drug Administration-approved treatment promises to fix the consistency factor. It’s called iDose-TR.

“iDose-TR is a very innovative treatment that can deliver the drops from the inside of the eye without the patient having to use the drops. It takes the memory out of the equation,” Kaldawy said.

The iDose-TR device is an implant placed directly into the anterior chamber of the eye through a tiny incision. The implant is covered with a membrane that holds the medication which disperses therapeutic levels of the drops over time.

The drops called Travoprost are meant to lower the pressure in the eye and prevent further damage that could lead to blindness from glaucoma.

“We find with iDose-TR that the pressure is reliably reduced in the eye. Right now, we know for at least three years, the more recent studies are showing even longer effect. The effect on the pressure is consistent. So, it’s slow all the time. The pressure doesn’t go through gymnastics of going up and down and threatening the eye in between,” said Kaldawy.

At Mass Eye and Ear, experts said treatment options for glaucoma have improved in recent years.

“Glaucoma these days is not the same as it was 10 to 20 years ago. We also have laser-based procedures that can reduce the amount of fluid the eye produces and a bunch of surgical procedures as well,” said Dr. Daniel Liebman, a glaucoma and cataract surgeon at the hospital.

Liebman said a committee at Mass Eye and Ear is reviewing iDose TR as a treatment option for their patients in the future.

But he added that the best treatment is early intervention.

“Glaucoma is what we call a silent loss of vision, and the symptoms are difficult to pick up early on. The earliest symptoms people would notice is when it’s advanced. The only way we can really detect it is through screening from optometrist who could pick up the subtle findings,” said Liebman.

iDose-TR costs around $13,000 dollars. Kaldawy said insurance may cover it. The device’s manufacturer said it should last up to three years. Research is underway to make sure it’s safe to replace the device when it runs out of drops.

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