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Euretina president says retinal research, treatment have entered new era
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VIENNA, Austria — Retinal research and treatment have made strong progress in recent years, José Cunha-Vaz, MD, PhD, president of the European Society of Retinal Specialists, said here.
"Patients are actually regaining vision after treatment in diseases like age-related-macular degeneration and other retinal pathologies where the best we could do was preserve, temporarily, residual vision," Dr. Cunha-Vaz said at the Euretina Congress. "Anti-VEGF therapy, combination therapy and the advancement in the research on gene therapy give us all the reasons to be optimistic about diseases that would otherwise progress to loss of vision or blindness."
Euretina has grown from a niche meeting of a small group of specialists to an international congress with more than 1,500 delegates from 74 countries. Attendance has also grown recently because "the intravitreal injection has opened the door to a lot of new therapies, and even general ophthalmologists are beginning to get interested in the possibilities of these new treatments," Dr. Cunha-Vaz said.
Euretina is now aiming to become the retinal society of reference in Europe and has the ambitious program of gathering forces to implement retinal research through intensified relationships with the European Parliament and Commissions.