Drainage surgery for primary open-angle glaucoma: past, present, future

Relevance. Despite many techniques for reducing intraocular pressure, surgical treatment of glaucoma has limited effectiveness. First, due to excessive scarring of new intraocular fluid outflow pathways and second, antifibrotics medicaments are unable to effectively control wound healing. The use of drainages reduces the risk of excessive scarring in the area of the filtration pad and forms several ways of outflow of intraocular fluid. The review presents the following sections: development history, advantages, disadvantages, surgical technique and promising directions of glaucoma drainage surgery.Purpose. Summarizing data on the possibility of drainage surgery, historical aspects, causes of scarring and methods of dealing with them. Provide data on various modern drainage devices that are used not only in Russia and their effectiveness.Material and methods. To perform the review, we searched for literature sources on the abstract databases E-library, PubMed and Scopus for the period up to and including 2018, using the keywords «glaucoma drainage surgery» (in the E-library database), «anti-glaucoma drainage» and «anti-glaucoma drainage device» (in the PubMed and Scopus databases). Abstracts of conferences were excluded from the review. A total of 40 articles related to the review topic were identified. The beginning of publications on this issue in domestic sources dates back to 1970, and in foreign sources to 1987.Results. The review presents the history of development, advantages, disadvantages of surgical techniques and promising areas of glaucoma drainage surgery. Various models of drainage devices, as well as their specific and non-specific complications are described. The effectivenes of various valves were 70%, with an average decrease in the level of IOP by at least 50% from the preoperative values. At the same time, the risk of an increase in the level of IOP above the target values is about 10% per year, which leads to the fact that after 5 years only in 50% of cases drainage devices function effectively. Therefore, studies of biomaterials, forms and techniques of drainage implantation surgery, new controlled-release antifibrotic drugs can positively affect the long-term effectiveness of glaucoma surgery.Conclusion. The data presented in the literature review allow us to identify the most effective models of drainage devices, their effectiveness, implantation techniques and possible complications.Key words: glaucoma, refractory glaucoma, glaucoma drainage surgery, drainages.