Pharmacologic Therapy of Ocular Disease

Joao Crispim, Wallace Chamon

According to the World Health Organization, cataract is the major cause of reversible visual impairment in the world. It is present as the cause of decreased visual acuity in 33% of the visual impaired citizens. With the increase of life expectancy in the last decades, the number of patients with cataract is expected to grow for the next 20 years. Nowadays, the only effective treatment for cataracts is surgery and its surgical outcomes have been increasingly satisfactory with the technological advancement.Pharmaceutical development has been also responsible for surgical outcomes enhancement. This includes the development of new ophthalmic viscoelastic devices (OVDs), intraocular dyes, mydriatics, miotics, anesthetics, irrigating solutions, and antibiotics. However, the increased costs and demand for cataract surgery may be hard to meet in the future unless clinical preventive and curative options are evaluated.In this chapter, we review the studies that addressed pharmacological applications in cataract.