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A/Prof Owen Siggs, recipient of the Glaucoma Australia ‘Quinlivan’ Research Grant in 2022 is now 18 months into his research into the Genomic Risk Stratification to improve glaucoma suspect triage in rural primary care.
Dr Siggs and his team are performing a world-first assessment of the utility of a glaucoma polygenic risk score to predict outcomes amongst glaucoma suspects assessed in a rural primary care setting.
He explains, “we hope the results of this study can be used to improve the ability of primary care practitioners to identify which glaucoma suspects require urgent referral to a specialist ophthalmology service, and which suspects can be monitored in a primary care setting.
This could in turn improve the quality of treatment and monitoring for both high and low risk glaucoma suspects”.
To date his team have recruited and collected saliva samples from 62 participants, from which 50 have had longitudinal clinical data extracted and collated. DNA has been extracted from 48 samples, and successfully used for genotyping and polygenic risk score generation. The goal is to extend this cohort to 200-300 participants for full analysis.
“Pinpointing individuals at highest risk of glaucoma blindness is a critical challenge, particularly for those in rural, regional, and remote areas where access to specialist care is limited. We hope our project will go some way towards addressing this, and are excited to get underway,” Dr Siggs said.
Dr Siggs further explains, “optometrists are often faced with the difficult decision of whether or not to refer individuals for a specialist glaucoma assessment. This is especially critical in a rural setting, where specialist glaucoma practitioners are in limited supply. This study will test a new genetic risk prediction tool for glaucoma, to determine if it can help predict outcomes in glaucoma suspects presenting to rural optometry practices, with the ultimate aim of improving referral pathways for all glaucoma suspects.”
Ultimately, Dr Siggs hopes this research will play a key role in both increasing the rate of early detection as well as improving the treatment experience for people living with glaucoma.
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