“A week is a long time in politics.”1 Those who waited for a “final result” in the recent American presidential elections will have been only too familiar with this saying, given the frequent, sometimes hourly, changes in the fortunes of the protagonists. However, in contrast with this, the time frame to a “final result” in most patients with glaucoma is much longer. It may take us our whole working careers to learn the lifetime natural history of one of our adult patients with glaucoma or other chronic conditions such as uveitis. In the case of the paediatric glaucoma clinic at Moorfields Eye Hospital that has been running for five decades, it is a sobering thought that it will take the careers of three consultants to see one patient through their lifetime! Yet the very thing patients with glaucoma want is for us to gaze into a crystal ball and predict their …