Primary angle-closure glaucoma in urbanized South African caucasoid and negroid communities.

Primary angle-closure glaucoma (ACG) is said to be rare in Negroes (Rodger, 1958; Sarkies, I953; Neuman and Zauberman, I965; Av-Shalom, I966) when compared to white populations. Statistics for white patients attending glaucoma clinics give an incidence for ACG varying from 6 per cent. to 73 per cent. of all cases of primary glaucoma (Sugar, 1957; Smith, I965). Studies from Africa south of the Sahara (excluding South Africa) and the United States of America suggest that angle-closure glaucoma is seldom if ever seen in Negroes, but Alper and Laubach (I968) have recently pointed out that the disease often passes unrecognised in American Negroes in whom it tends to occur in subacute or chronic form, while the acute form is rare.