Blog by Rishi P. Singh

The advancement of retinal therapies offers promise and hopefully no peril to those willing to push the boundaries of medical science into new indications.

Samsung Bioepis and Biogen’s collaboration on the approval of Byooviz, a biosimilar referencing Lucentis, ushers in a new period of biosimilar anti-VEGF biologics in retina and more choices for both patients and physicians.

The use of bevacizumab has allowed patients to receive adequate care for various retinal diseases including wet age-related macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, diabetic macular edema and macular edema due to retinal vein occlusions.

On the heels of the major announcement from Novartis that Beovu should not be used in intervals less than 8 weeks, some are wondering what the ultimate future of the drug will be.

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, ophthalmology research has continued at an exciting pace.

The removal of the internal limiting membrane during vitreoretinal surgery has become standard of care, especially in macular hole surgery.

The high treatment burden of age-related macular degeneration, including frequent injections and office visits, means there are severe limitations to achieving optimal outcomes in neovascular AMD.

Social distancing, reducing our clinical volume and canceling elective surgeries have led nationally and in Ohio to a significant flattening of our curve. Locally we are currently trending at a model of social distancing between 60% and 80% and have blunted the curve such that our health care organization can now get back to elective patients while not being overwhelmed with COVID-19 inpatients.

Reading the news and listening to reports of friends and loved ones being affected by the pandemic can be concerning. The calls from local and national health authorities to stay apart to stop the spread while trying to maintain a normal lifestyle can be difficult. And then seeing stories of patients young and old losing their lives to this virus can make us feel defeated and lost.

Retinoschisis is a nonprogressive degenerative splitting of the neurosensory retina, most often at the outer plexiform layer.