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OSN debuts ‘News You Can Use’ column
Physicians from the UPMC Eye Center will provide monthly updates on the latest clinical news, research and techniques.
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I am pleased to pen the inaugural column of “News You Can Use from UPMC Eye Center” for Ocular Surgery News. This column will present clinically relevant information, insights and techniques that we as clinicians can apply to our daily practice of ophthalmology. We at the UPMC Eye Center will do our best to present the most up-to-date material, keeping the focus on the clinical and the here and now. We will also report on the soon-to-come or the just around the corner research and breakthroughs that we see having a significant impact on our clinical practice and patients.
With so many areas of ophthalmology changing quickly, it can be difficult to know what is important and what is not, what can be used for today’s patient and what is coming down the pike that will be helpful. We will endeavor to separate the wheat from the chaff in assessing the state of the art.
Some upcoming columns will discuss corneal cross-linking, techniques for intraoperative use of mitomycin C, treatment options for facial rejuvenation and dealing with thyroid orbitopathy. While these columns are clinical in focus, the discussions will include a strong evidence-based foundation on which the applications are built.
We will include topics designed to keep us as clinicians up to date with new advances. Regenerative ophthalmology is becoming an area of rapid development. Corneal limbal stem cell transplant is already a reality and performed today in operating rooms worldwide. Gene therapy for blindness due to inherited disease is in clinical trials, as is stem cell treatment for age-related macular degeneration. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has just approved a retinal prosthesis for clinical vision restoration. Sensory substitution technology is approved for clinical use in Europe, allowing the blind to sense the visual environment via video signals presented to the tongue. Advances that seem like science fiction, nearly unimaginable even 10 years ago, are today benefiting patients clinically and in research studies.
Joel S. Schuman
Another area that we will comment on is ocular diagnostics, particularly imaging. At a time when the field is evolving quickly with a variety of devices and techniques, we will try to provide some clarity in this area. The uses of imaging for diagnosis and detection of change may require different approaches. Further, the frequent lack of correspondence between acuity and macular thickness or visual field and optical coherence tomography progression can be confusing for any clinician and deserves discussion.
We envision these columns being brief and to the point. We ask for your feedback to ensure that we remain on track. If articles in this series seem off, write to us. If there are topics we should cover, tell us. We would like to make sure that what we provide really is news you can use.
Physicians are encouraged to visit www.upmcphysicianresources.com/ophthalmology to further explore topics covered in this column or ask a question of one of UPMC’s ophthalmology experts.