European Glaucoma Society Terminology and Guidelines for Glaucoma, 4th Edition - Chapter 3: Treatment principles and options Supported by the EGS Foundation: Part 1: Foreword; Introduction; Glossary; Chapter 3 Treatment principles and options.

### 3.1 - General Principles of Glaucoma Treatment The purpose of this chapter is to give a summary overview and it is not meant to be an all-inclusive text Figure 3.1. THE WHOM -TO -TREAT GRAPH The rate of ganglion cell loss and resulting functional decay is very different among different glaucoma eyes. Quality of life is clearly reduced when visual field defects become severe, cf. the severe functional impairment. Line A represents the effect of aging alone. In glaucoma loss of visual function is often much more rapid. An older patient, diagnosed late in life, with a moderate rate of progression (B) has a much lower risk of developing severe functional impairment than a younger patient with the same amount of field loss at diagnosis and rate of progression (C). A very slow rate of progression may be tolerated by the patient and treatment left unchanged (D), while a rapid rate of progression (E) needs a considerably lower target pressure . It needs to be remembered that it is the extent of binocular visual field or the field of the better eye that largely determines the patient’s quality of life, while the rates of progression of each eye separately are needed to determine treatment . To assess the likely Rate of Progression (RoP) is an important part of patient management and the measured rate is a very important factor that should determine target pressure and treatment intensity (See Ch. Introduction) [I.D]. Many studies have found that progression is usually linear1-4, but the goal of intensifying treatment is to decrease rate of progression. Please observe that perimetric printouts of progression using the MD or VFI indices are age-corrected, so that a normal eye would not show any age-related deterioration over time. The goal of glaucoma treatment is to maintain the patient’s visual function and related quality of life, …