News

Patients with established glaucoma have only slightly greater knowledge of their condition than patients who are newly diagnosed.

Ocular motility abnormalities and strabismus are common in children after aqueous drainage device surgery and these problems should be taken into account before proceeding with surgery.

It is recommended that all babies with retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) be screened at 12 months to identify amblyogenic factors such as squint and refractive error.

Age, independent of the duration of uveitis, is a major risk factor for the presence of cystoid macular oedema (CME) in uveitis.

Preliminary results of a study using the NSAID Xibrom (bromfenac ophthalmic solution 0.09%; ISTA Pharmaceuticals) therapy in combination with Lucentis (ranibizumab; Novartis) in patients with wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD), suggests that it may result in fewer injections being required.

Bausch & Lomb has acquired eyeonics, the maker of the crystalens accommodating IOL.

Diffuse lamellar keratitis (DLK) occurs more frequently after LASIK performed with the IntraLase 15 kHz femtosecond laser than after LASIK performed with the Moria M2 microkeratome.

Female cataract surgery patients are more likely to assess their postoperative visual function as worse than male patients.

March's research news

The M2 microkeratome (Moria), the Carriazo-Pendular microkeratome (Schwind) and the IntraLase femtosecond laser all create flaps of predictable thickness.

Incision sizes needed to remove cataracts have been significantly reduced by new technology, such as the vision enhancement system (Stellaris; Bausch & Lomb) which allows surgeons to make two 1.8 mm cuts on either side of the eye.

According to an article in UK newspaper The Sunday Times, blind children in the UK are being taught to "see" by using the same method used by bats, dolphins, and whales: clicking their tongues.

Oxidative stress is an early event in hydrostatic pressure/intraocular pressure-induced (IOP) neuronal damage.

April Editorial List

When the amount of optic nerve damage is taken into account, there is little difference in the optic disc topography of patients with primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG) and those with primary angle-closure glaucoma.

Optic disc pit prevalence increases with age and is strongly associated with high-pressure open-angle glaucoma.

Twenty-three gauge transconjunctival sutureless vitrectomy is an effective surgical technique for the management of vitreoretinal diseases.

A blind person's sight has been restored by surgeons at the University Hospitals of Geneva (HUG) for the first time in Europe using American technology.

MacuSight has announced positive preliminary data from the Phase I study of its lead product candidate for wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD), sirolimus.

A study published in the January issue of Antimicrobial Agents & Chemotherapy, has found that the high proportion of corneal infections linked to contact lens solutions are fuelled and made resistant to treatment by the formation of a highly resistant structure of microbial cells held together with a glue-like matrix material, called biofilms.

The use of glaucoma drainage surgery is decreasing in Britain, which may be explained by an increase in cataract extraction, according to a report published in the January issue of Eye.

Using a telemedicine system to assist ophthalmologists in developing countries with the diagnosis and management of various ophthalmic conditions can be successful.

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Wavefront-guided LASIK is a safe and efficacious way to correct moderate to high myopia and compound myopic astigmatism.

In eyes that have undergone corneal refractive surgery, non-Goldmann measurements of intraocular pressure (IOP) and continued examination of the optic nerve is essential as changes of the corneal shape can lead to falsely low IOP values.

A more holistic approach to patient referral and rehabilitation provision for people with low vision is required.

Systematic screening for diabetic retinopathy (DR) has been identified as a cost-effective use of health service resources,1-4 with national screening programmes based on digital photography being implemented across Europe. In Scotland, images are captured at local screening centres and sent electronically to one of nine regional grading centres, where they are manually graded using a three-level system (Figure 1).

Modern intraocular lenses (IOLs) transmit only a part of the spectrum, just like natural lenses, but the transmission of the natural lens changes with age. With increasing age, the lens becomes far less transparent in the violet/blue part of the visible spectrum. Can the transmission of an IOL, therefore, be compared to that of the natural lens at a certain age? In other words, can we assign a virtual age to an IOL? The answer is yes and such an age is far easier to interpret than the complicated transmission curves provided by industry.

The lack of public knowledge about glaucoma surprises me. Although pretty much everybody has heard of it, little is generally known other than the fact that it affects the eye.

Sreening for early ectatic disease is essential in the evaluation of the refractive surgical candidate. There have, however, been many cases of severe post-LASIK ectasia without evidence of preoperative risk factors. Improving preoperative screening with better detection of subtle corneal topographic abnormalities may therefore help eliminate these rare but devastating cases.