ESCRS president Filomena Ribeiro invites ASCRS attendees to 'cataract Olympiad' after successful Refractive Day

During the first day of the 2024 ASCRS meeting, attendees could enjoy select presentations as part of the refractive subspecialty day. Filomena Ribeiro, MD, PhD, FEBO, is president of the ESCRS. She shared talking points from her presentation on neuroadaptation with Ophthalmology Times Europe, and invited friends and colleagues to the upcoming ESCRS Congress in Barcelona, Spain, this September.

Editor's note: The following transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Hi, I'm Filomena Ribeiro. I'm the president of ESCRS And today, we are here in Boston, in the celebration of the anniversary of ASCRS, sharing our experience with our colleagues. So, today was Refractive Day, and we had a special session, which was amazing because almost all [the speakers] were women. It was great to see the session. And we touched on several points about the new designs of the IOLs, and also the problems that we can have in the post-op.

My talk was about neuroadaptation, which is, well, like a mystery issue right now. We still have a lot to know about this process, but it really exists, and there is proofs of the the stimulation of the brain's learning areas after the the implantation of bilateral trifocals, for instance. That is something that provides also the ability of patients to neuroadapt, I showed some some data about binocular summation, which is also very relevant for the type of design of the intraocular lenses. Because we know that the binocular summation is more relevant for multifocal IOLs compared with a monofocal IOL. So, yes, sometimes we need to be patient. We need to explain everything to our patients, and wait for the process of neuroadaptation.

I really would like to invite you all to go to the session of the Olympics [the ASCRS "Cataract Olympiad" event on Sunday, 7 April, at 1330], where ESCRS will debate the "football team" with all of you. And this year, ESCRS will have the main congress in Barcelona, which is an amazing city. We'll have hot, not the cold of Boston, and it will be a great congress with very new initiatives. We'll have big societies also represented in the combined sessions, and I think you will love to be there with all of us. Please, I would like to invite you all to come in September to the Congress of ESCRS in Barcelona.