Ophthalmology

For more than a decade medical researchers have been learning more about their fields from studying the injuries sustained by soldiers on the battlefield. A recent study looked at vision loss in this patient population, particularly in regards to traumatic brain injury.

It can sometimes seem like there truly is an app for everything these days. From tools that monitor how many steps the user takes each day to applications that assess sleep patterns, physicians and patients have a wide array of choices that can help them maintain good health.

While cataracts may be one of the most common conditions being treated the National Eye Institute is also looking at ways to treat other less commonly seen issues as well.

Cataracts are one of the most common diagnosis in eye care but there is still work being done to help treat the condition in the most effective way possible.

Telemedicine – exchanging medical information between sites over electronic communications equipment to improve a patient’s clinical health status – lets patients access providers without spending time and resources commuting to and from the appointment site.

The approaching summer months often call for long drives with the windows and top rolled down. Feeling the gentle breeze might be fun, but the sun’s rays beating down through the side window can be uncomfortable and even harmful to one’s health.

Certifying and accrediting organizations have begun looking at a new quality metric: failure to rescue (FTR).

When a patient is dying, it can be difficult to know what to say to them. Here are a few tips and approaches that I have gathered from experts that I hope will help you get through those hard conversations while continuing to provide the best possible care to your patient.

Being a good doctor is hard work, especially considering the current state of our health care system. Some doctors, however, are simply bad news. And because most doctors today have comparable education and credentials, bad doctors don’t exactly stick out like sore thumbs.

How do I loathe EHRs? Let me count the ways...

Yutao Liu, MD, PhD, Georgia Regents University, discussed how he and his team can potentially target genes to either reduce glaucoma or provide neuroprotection specifically for the mitochondria in the retina.

A patch that uses patients’ own stem cells to protect them from vision loss will soon begin phase 1 trials.

Results from the ATLAS study show that patients with wet AMD treated with Eylea experienced visual and anatomic improvements after 1 year that were sustained after 2 years.

Phase 2a trial of novel topical anti-angiogenic agent regorafenib shows lack of efficacy in neovascular age-related macular degeneration.

According to Henry Kaplan, MD, University of Louisville School of Medicine, "One has to recognize that there are multiple approaches like gene therapy, neuroprotection, stem cell transplantation, and pharmacologic manipulation of other genes really holds the greatest benefit in terms of trying to reverse the inevitable loss of vision."

Henry Kaplan, MD, KY Lions Eye Center, University of Louisville School of Medicine, is focusing his efforts on figuring out how to preserve or recover lost central vision in patients with retinitis pigmentosa.

Neeraj Agarwal, PhD, FARVO, shared his unique perspective of marrying his prior clinical research to his current institutional landscape at the NIH.

Gene therapy with the CRISPR/Cas9 system corrects mutations identified with patient-specific models that use stem cells generated from skin.

Non-destructive imaging and functional assessment of retinal structures formed from human stem cells confirms their similarity to the adult retina.

Study results show that transplanted human retinal stem cells rescue photoreceptors in rabbit retinas for 8 months.

Diabetic retinapathy is one of the leading causes of blindness

Andrew Hartwick, PhD, The College of Optometry at The Ohio State University wants to understand why regardless of normal, standard vision tests, there is still clearly something wrong with pateints' sight.

Study results show that the majority of patients with retinal neovascularization due to proliferative diabetic retinopathy treated with bevacizumab experience total, long-term regression of their symptoms.

Aflibercept exerts anti-angiogenic effects against galectin-1, a galactoside-binding lectin protein and novel angiogenic factor associated with proliferative diabetic retinopathy.

After 12 or 24 monthly injections, ranibizumab, one of three currently available vascular endothelial growth factor antibodies, caused regression of diabetic retinopathy (DR) in at least 75% of patients who had diabetic macular edema and whose DR severity put them at the highest risk of progression to proliferative DR.

Andrew Hartwick, PhD, Associate Professor at The College of Optometry at The Ohio State University discussed his research surrounding traumatic brain injury (TBI) patients who experience increased light sensitivity, or photophobia.

It may seem like elite athletes have a leg up on non-sports players when it comes to eye control, but research out of the University of Bradford in the United Kingdom says that’s not exactly the case.

Patients with the hereditary degenerative eye disease retinitis pigmentosa (RP) may delay their loss of daytime vision by taking a traditional Chinese plant remedy Lycium barbarum also known as goji berry or wolfberry.

A team of surgeons has demonstrated a surgical model using cadavers for total human eye allotransplantation.

"We hope there are strategies for regeneration of the optic nerve and making synaptic connections to the higher order brain structure, because those are the key issues."