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U.K. report identifies gaps in patient care, research
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LONDON — The largest charity organization dedicated to fighting vision loss in the United Kingdom recently released the results of a wide-ranging survey of questions about vision loss and eye disease from eye care professionals, patients and their relatives and care givers, in an effort to identify and prioritize gaps in research, according to a speaker here.
During the Ophthalmology Futures Forum here, Michele Acton, chief executive of Fight for Sight, discussed some of the findings from the Sight Loss and Vision Priority Setting Partnership: Setting Priorities for Eye Research Report to an audience of ophthalmologists, venture capitalists and corporate executives in the eye care industry.
“What do I mean by gaps?” Acton said. “I mean gaps for the patient, gaps we cannot treat, sight loss we cannot reverse. In the U.K. alone, 1.8 million people are affected by vision loss. Half of those are treatable; the other half are not so straightforward.”
The question survey of more than 2,200 people generated more than 4,400 questions, according to Acton. These questions were then analyzed and prioritized by category according to the number of questions about each condition. The questions were ranked into a top-10 list within 12 different condition categories.
The 12 categories included cornea, cataract, glaucoma, retinal disease and inherited retinal diseases, among others.
As stated in the executive summary provided here, findings from the report “will enable existing funders of eye research to target the priorities that matter most to those affected by sight loss and eye conditions.”
For more information, go to www.sightlosspsp.org.uk.
Disclosure: No companies or products are mentioned that would require financial disclosure.