This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
2018 year in review: Celebrate life
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
The year 2018 brought a number of serious life challenges for me personally but a few high moments to keep me moving forward. I lost my younger brother by 2 years to end-stage lung cancer, followed by the departure of my loving partner in life of 8 years when she decided to move on in another direction. Just when you are on top of the world, it can come all crashing down so quickly, so I will continue to do what I have been trying to do for the past year — celebrate life! So despite all, I bring you my top 10 events from my perspective for 2018. I would like to thank the entire Ocular Surgery News/Healio.com team for keeping me in line and on time as I reach my 60th Premium Channel column.
No. 10: MIGS devices iStent inject (Glaukos) and Hydrus (Ivantis) get FDA approved.
No. 9: Cequa (cyclosporine ophthalmic solution 0.09%, Sun Pharmaceuticals) gets approved to expand our dry eye treatment options.
No. 8: Intracameral Dexycu (dexamethasone intraocular suspension 9%, EyePoint Pharmaceuticals) gets FDA approved and should be available commercially soon as a means to deliver steroid intracamerally at the time of cataract surgery.
No. 7: SMILE (Carl Zeiss Meditec) procedure gets FDA approval for astigmatism correction.
No. 6: Flarex (fluorometholone acetate ophthalmic suspension 0.1%, Eyevance Pharmaceuticals) comes back to life as a great potent steroid with little IOP side effect.
No. 5: New EnVista toric IOL (Bausch + Lomb) with great rotational stability gets premarket approval and is now commercially available.
No. 4: STAAR’s Visian toric ICL finally gets FDA approved to expand our refractive/vision correction surgery armamentarium.
No. 3: Having my first fellow, Anna Edmiston, MD, in a refractive/cataract surgery private practice fellowship. She has been a lifesaver and will be a great star in our field.
No. 2: Being president of CEDARS/ASPENS and receiving the Founders Award, and receiving the Board of Trustees Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Academy of Ophthalmology.
No. 1: Even better than seeing the Chicago Cubs winning the World Series in 2016, seeing my oldest son Max “Aror” Jackson with his Team Splyce win the Smite Pro World Championship in Atlanta.
Despite the many peaks and tragedies/challenges I encountered last year, it was still a productive year for ophthalmology. Although it did not make my top 10, I also look forward to having Inveltys (loteprednol etabonate ophthalmic suspension 1%, Kala Pharmaceuticals) as another new anti-inflammatory steroid to be used during cataract surgery. My big excitement for the upcoming 2019 year is trifocal IOLs coming to market — hopefully PanOptix (Alcon) and At Lisa (Zeiss).
May all my readership have a prosperous 2019 new year. And remember to celebrate life, as was the theme to my big DJMJ show at Navy Pier this past AAO.
- For more information:
- Mitchell A. Jackson, MD, can be reached at Jacksoneye, 300 N. Milwaukee Ave., Suite L, Lake Villa, IL 60046; email: mjlaserdoc@msn.com.
Disclosure: Jackson reports he is a consultant for Bausch + Lomb, Kala, Carl Zeiss Meditec, Ivantis, Sun Pharmaceuticals, Eyevance Pharmaceuticals and EyePoint Pharmaceuticals.