In the period 11-17. March 2018 marked the World Glaucoma Week – a chronic, progressive illness, which has about 80 million people in the world, and most of them are not aware of it. In order to point out the importance of timely detection of the disease, on March 12, for all citizens, without scheduling and instructions, the measurement of intraocular pressure was organized free of charge at the Clinic for Eye Diseases of the Clinical Center of Vojvodina.

Eye examinations, without instructions and booklets, were welcomed by a large number of Novi Sad people, and professional medical opinion was sought by patients regardless of gender, age and previous history of eye disease.

Glaucoma occurs most commonly after the age of 40, and it can be said that age is one of the risk factors for its formation. The illness leads to the load of the visual nerve in place, from where the nerve carries the brain information about what the eye recognizes as an image.

“They call it a silent blind thief or a disease of silent blindness, just because it is a very imperceptible disease, it actually comes without symptoms, or this symptomatology is very scarce, and it is characterized by pain in the eyebrow, eye or even one half of the head. When talking about this type of glaucoma, we are thinking in fact of the open angle of the glaucoma, because there are other types of glaucoma. This is the glaucoma most prevalent among people of the white race, “he told RTV prof. Dr. Nikola Babić from the Clinic for Eye Diseases at the Clinical Center of Vojvodina.

Although it is impossible to cure glaucoma for now, it is possible to prevent the progression of this disease using special eye drops.

During the World Week of Glaucoma, the Ophthalmology Clinic of the Clinical Center in Kragujevac organized preventive and control examinations on Sunday for the fight against glaucoma. Prof. Dr. Mirjana Petrović emphasizes the importance of timely detection of this disease and points to the control of patients who have already been diagnosed with glaucoma and regular measurements of eye pressure, as well as on preventive examinations aimed at early detection of glaucoma and its treatment.