Is glaucoma an autoimmune disease?

There is increasing evidence from animal and human studies that glaucoma is an autoimmune disease. Evidence for this hypothesis includes the fact that antibodies as well as T-cell responses to heat-shock proteins (HSPs) are detectable in some patients with glaucoma and in an animal model of the disease. As in the human disease, experimental animal models of glaucoma have been found to demonstrate neurodegenerative changes in the optic nerve associated with immunoglobulin and T-cell infiltration. Although there is still insufficient evidence in humans to classify all cases of glaucoma as autoimmune diseases, the implications of this hypothesis have major impact on the diagnosis and treatment of glaucoma.