Every year, the AGS meeting features presentations of
the best in glaucoma research. This year, more than
600 registrants enjoyed 68 poster and 24 paper presentations
as well as a glaucoma surgery day, several
symposia, roundtables, workshops,…
Category: Glaucoma
INDUSTRY NEWS AND INNOVAT IONS
h4Merck to Acquire Inspire
Pharmaceuticals, Inc./h4
Merck and Co., Inc. (Whitehouse Station, NJ), and Inspire
Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Raleigh, NC), announced that they
have entered into a definitive agreement under which
Merck will acquire I…
Learn to Ask Yourself the Essential Questions
emThe “Landmark Studies” column will focus on the main
findings of historic studies in glaucoma and how their results
should change physicians’ practices./em
h4WHAT IS A LANDMARK STUDY?/h4
A landmark study asks a compellin…
The Cost-effective Use of Diagnostic Technologies
Primary open-angle glaucoma currently
affects at least 2.2 million
individuals over the age of 40 in
the United States.sup1/sup Considering
the disproportionate growth of the elderly
population, the incidence of glaucoma is
expected to r…
Management of Angle Closure in the Nanophthalmic Patient
h4CASE PRESENTATION/h4
A 48-year-old white woman presented to Credit Valley
Eyecare in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, with nanophthalmos
and acute chronic angle-closure glaucoma in her
right eye. The latter was caused by a combination of
m…
Improving Patients’ Adherence to Glaucoma Therapy
Patients’ adherence to drug therapy to control
chronic diseases is notoriously poor, particularly
when the disease is asymptomatic. Moreover,
self-reporting of adherence correlates very
poorly with reality. How can you improve this situation…
Reconsidering the Gold Standard of Tonometry
IOP is one of the key metrics used to monitor the
health of an eye, especially an eye with glaucoma.
Tonometry is the act of estimating the IOP. It is not a
measurement of eye pressure, only an estimate. An
exact measurement of IOP requires li…
The Role of Surgical Intervention in Reducing Costs
Several years ago, when a senior
official at the FDA was asked why
there was such a difference in getting
licensing for glaucoma medicines
compared to glaucoma devices, the
answer, slightly in jest, was, “The device
has only got to show it…
An Industry Perspective
Anyone reading Glaucoma Today knows that
some 3 million Americans suffer from this neurodegenerative
disease. Thanks to its size, this
market continues to attract extensive investment
in drug development, which has provided physicians
and the…
The Literature
h4SHORT-TERM REPEATABILITY OF DIURNAL
INTRAOCULAR PRESSURE PATTERNS IN
GLAUCOMATOUS INDIVIDUALSsup1/sup/h4
emRealini T, Weinreb N, Wisniewski S.*br /
Ophthalmology/em, January 2011
strongDo patients treated for primary …
Sidebar: Holding on to Goldmann Tonometry
The problems of a lack of precision and accuracy with
Goldmann tonometry, still the gold standard for better or
for worse, have been discussed for decades. Although
pointing out its shortfalls and contemplating the development
of more accurate…
CHIEF MEDICAL EDITOR’S PAGE: Carpe Diem
Economic discussions have dominated the
national conversation of the past few years.
The current health care system appears to
be unsustainable. Medicare A is projected
to go bankrupt in 2019, health insurance premiums
have doubled since 2001…
Reducing the Preservative Load in Glaucoma Therapy
Despite the many advances in our understanding
of glaucoma, the only available treatments
of the disease are aimed at lowering
IOP, and IOP-lowering medications are usually
our initial therapy. Consequently, unmet needs in glaucoma
treatment …
Why Do I Perform Research?
When my 2 1/2-year-old son asks, “Why are
trees green? Why did Mama sneeze? Why
did baby Alex spit up?” I smile. I smile
because I am amazed at how inquisitive
human beings are, even at such a young age. I smile
because others once had th…
The Ganglion Cell Complex
The measurement of the perifoveal ganglion cell
layer recently emerged as a new diagnostic
parameter in glaucoma. Various manufacturers
of spectral-domain optical coherence tomography
(SD-OCT) systems have released or will soon release
softwa…
Marketing Methodologies for High-Growth Practices
As you are passing between your clinic’s examination
rooms on a tiring Thursday evening—your
back still sore from the previous afternoon’s surgeries—
your assistant grabs your shoulder to
alert you that tonight is the deadline to renew…
Evolutions and Revolutions in Glaucoma Surgery
While I was refining my suturing technique
during the plastic surgery rotation of my
internship, my mentor, a successful plastic
surgeon on the island of Oahu, gave me
some advice. He noticed that I varied my suturing technique
a bit with eac…
The Zhongshan Angle Closure Prevention Trial
By the year 2020, primary angleclosure
glaucoma (PACG) will
account for half of the 11 million
people who are estimated to be
bilaterally blind from glaucoma.sup1/sup China is
home to the majority of people with
PACG worldwide. An estima…
Is Glaucoma Screening Worthwhile?
Glaucoma currently ranks as a leading cause of
irreversible blindness worldwide, but many of
those afflicted are unaware that they have this
painless, progressive neurodegenerative disease.
Visual impairment is costly in terms of lost producti…
Can Being Overweight Protect Against Glaucoma?
Results from the 10 year prospective Rotterdam study showed that for every point increase in BMI, there was a 7% reduction in risk for a woman developing glaucoma. A one point increase in BMI is roughly equal to 6 pounds…