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BLOG: Evaluate all patients with keratoconus for cross-linking
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In the Feb. 10 issue of Ocular Surgery News, the cover story features contact lens-assisted collagen cross-linking for keratoconus.
This modification to a well-established procedure is designed to expand its indication to include patients whose corneas are thinner than 400 µm. Soosan Jacob, who elegantly described this new technique, has a growing body of data supporting its use.
This technique expands further a procedure that has helped many thousands of patients in Europe, where it’s considered malpractice not to consider treatment with collagen cross-linking for any case of progressive keratoconus or ectasia.
Here in the U.S., the FDA has not approved any cross-linking system, but no administrative/regulatory policy changes what is good medicine. Because of its non-approved status, the U.S. still has limited sites offering the procedure through studies such as the CXLUSA study group. Nonetheless, in most major U.S. cities, centers can be found offering cross-linking, and every patient identified with this condition deserves evaluation at some point.
Disclosure: Hovanesian is a clinical investigator with the CXLUSA study.