Dangers of glycerol therapy for acute glaucoma after a partial gastrectomy.

The introduction of the osmotic agents has dramatically altered the management of patients suffering from acute closed-angle glaucoma. Intravenous therapy is available as urea, mannitol, and sodium ascorbate, but the only oral preparation in general use is glycerol. The commonly recognized complications are mild headache, pain in the neck, and nausea and vomiting, and there is the added risk of thrombophlebitis with the intravenous agents. The purpose of this report is to draw attention to another obvious but apparently unrecorded problem.