Two international societies will convene to discuss PVR, trauma

The meeting will follow the two societies’ philosophy of discussing the “whys” — reasons behind the choice of a procedure or therapy.

ByMichael Piechocki

Two ophthalmic societies are joining together to hold an international conference focusing on the topics of proliferative vitreoretinopathy and ocular trauma.

The European VitreoRetinal Society (EVRS) and the International Society of Ocular Trauma (ISOT) will hold their first joint meeting this September in Sopron, Hungary.

According to Ferenc Kuhn, MD, PhD, executive vice president of ISOT and a vitreoretinal and ocular trauma surgeon in practice here, this joint meeting between the two societies is a natural collaboration. The fields of ocular trauma and vitreoretinal surgery are closely related, particularly in their use of the vitrectomy, and the two organizations share a philosophy: Both societies focus on the reasoning behind the choice of a particular procedure or treatment.

“The meetings of this society … are not like what you would find at other meetings, where people just go and give lectures,” Dr. Kuhn told Ocular Surgery News. “This is structured [differently] because there is a single topic, proliferative vitreoretinopathy, and not just anything in the vitreoretinal field.

Ocular trauma

According to Ferenc Kuhn, MD, PhD, ocular trauma was a fairly neglected field until the advent of vitrectomy. Vitrectomy not only made treatment of ocular trauma possible, but also greatly improved the potential for good surgical results.

“Now we can not only treat, but treat with hope a lot of conditions that before in almost all cases led to blindness,” Dr. Kuhn said.

“Also, we want to have lectures that do not just say ‘This is what I did and this is how I did it.’ For us, just as important, if not more important, is the question of Why? Why did you do this? We really want to ask everybody to answer that question before they submit their abstract and address that when giving their lecture. We don’t want to just list their results.”

Dr. Kuhn said much can be learned from surgical results, “but if you cannot justify what you do in a rational fashion, then I think you lose something.”

This joint meeting will be the sixth annual meeting of ISOT and the third annual meeting of EVRS. At present, there are no plans for future combined meetings, but Dr. Kuhn said the organizations have not ruled out that possibility.

Dr. Kuhn noted this will also be the first meeting at which all abstracts and presentations must adhere to the Birmingham Eye Trauma Terminology (BETT), which was described by Dr. Kuhn and colleagues in a 1996 article in Ophthalmology. Information on BETT can be found on the ISOT Web site.

Registration and abstract submission can be done via the EVRS Web site. The deadline for abstract submission is April 15. Only electronic submissions will be accepted.

For Your Information:

Ferenc Kuhn, MD, PhD, is executive vice president of the International Society of Ocular Trauma and president of the American Society of Ocular Trauma. He can be reached at 1201 11th Avenue South, Suite 300, Birmingham, AL 35205 U.S.A.; +(1) 205-558-2588; fax: +(1) 205-933-1341; e-mail: fkuhn@mindspring.com.

The International Society of Ocular Trauma can be contacted through its Web site, www.weironline.org.

The European VitreoRetinal Society can be contacted through its Web site; www.evrs.org.

Reference:

Kuhn F, Morris R, et al. A standardized classification of ocular trauma terminology. Ophthalmology. 1996;103:240-243.