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. 1989 Jan;73(1):48–51. doi: 10.1136/bjo.73.1.48

Idiopathic presenile cataract formation and galactosaemia.

R E Stevens 1, M B Datiles 1, S K Srivastava 1, N H Ansari 1, A E Maumenee 1, W J Stark 1
PMCID: PMC1041642  PMID: 2537652

Abstract

Five hundred patients undergoing cataract surgery were prospectively examined, and 46 Caucasian patients were found to have strictly idiopathic cataracts severe enough to warrant surgery on or before age 55. In a masked fashion we determined the activity of galactokinase (GK) and galactose-1-phosphate uridyl transferase (GPUT) in these patients as well as on 53 age matched controls. With respect to GK no cataract patient had an enzyme level of less than 2 standard deviations below the control mean. However, 3 of 45 (6.7%) patients in the cataract group had a GPUT level less than 2 standard deviations below the mean for controls, and were presumably heterozygotes for this enzyme. In comparison with the expected population rate of 0.8% this is highly significant (p = 0.006). Abnormalities in galactose pathway enzymes may therefore predispose to development of presenile cataracts. In affected people there is a possibility of treating these patients clinically by dietary restriction of dairy products or by using aldose reductase inhibitors to prevent or reverse cataract formation.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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