Category: Peer-reviewed
Ciliary Body Lymphangiogenesis
With interest we read the recent article by Khan et al investigating the ciliary body for the presence of peritumoral lymphatic vessels in uveal melanoma with and without extraocular extension. This study confirms previous findings by Birke et al on th…
Author reply
We appreciate the comments of Cereda et al regarding our article, “Highly reflective foveal region in optical coherence tomography in eyes with vitreomacular traction or epiretinal membrane.”
Phacoemulsification versus Trabeculectomy in Medically Uncontrolled Chronic Angle-Closure Glaucoma without Cataract
We read with interest the article by Tham et al on phacoemulsification versus trabeculectomy in medically uncontrolled chronic angle-closure glaucoma without cataract. We appreciate their discussion on the specific benefits and drawbacks of both phacoe…
Author reply
I thank Dr Wilkinson for his interest in my article. He questioned whether the location of retinal breaks developing with posterior vitreous detachment (PVD) after phacoemulsification in eyes with lattice degeneration were associated with the lattice d…
Vitreous Detachments after Phacoemulsification Surgery
I enjoyed reading the informative paper by Hikichi and have a single simple question regarding this important information. The data: Retinal tears occurred in 6.4% of eyes after development of a posterior vitreous detachment. These tears were signifi…
Gene Expression Profiling versus TNM Classification
We appreciate the opportunity to respond to the letter from Kivelä and Kujala regarding our recent article that prospectively evaluated a gene expression profile (GEP) prognostic test for uveal melanoma. One of us (J.W.H.) was a primary member of the …
Author reply
We thank Dr Kawada for his insightful comments. It is not uncommon to find differences in the association between risk factors and (1) prevalent disease and (2) incident disease. These associations need to be interpreted differently. Risk factor associ…
Keratitis-Induced Endophthalmitis
We read with great interest the article by Henry et al, which describes infectious keratitis progressing to endophthalmitis. This report provided us with valuable information on endophthalmitis contiguously spreading from keratitis. The study was simpl…
Optical Coherence Tomography in Eyes with Vitreomacular Traction
We read with interest the article “Highly reflective foveal region in optical coherence tomography in eyes with vitreomacular traction or epiretinal membrane” by Tsunoda et al. The authors reported the presence of a highly reflective deposit (named…
Erratum
With apologies from the editorial office, the Correspondence entitled, “Gene Expression Profiling vs. TNM Classification,” which printed in the May 2013 issue (Ophthalmology 2013;120:1109) erroneously included a statement that the authors of the or…
Editorial Board
Author reply
We thank Sherwin et al for highlighting the importance of nonrefractive error as a cause of blindness and visual impairment in older Africans and the possibility that reporting refractive error as the leading cause of correctible vision loss could resu…
Refractive Error Blindness in Older Africans
The Tema Eye Study provides valuable information on blindness and visual impairment in Ghana. Budenz et al estimated that the prevalences of visual impairment and blindness (based on presenting visual acuity [VA] measurements) were 17.1% and 1.2%, resp…
Alpha-1 Adrenergic Agonists for the Prevention of Floppy Iris Syndrome
We commend Lorente et al on their recent study regarding the efficacy of intracameral phenylephrine (iPNL) for the prevention of intraoperative floppy iris syndrome (IFIS). This prophylactic measure is among the alternatives currently adopted to minimi…
A Novel Homozygous BEST1 Mutation Correlates with Complex Ocular Phenotypes
The BEST1 gene has been implicated in distinguishable ocular diseases ranging from macular degeneration to nanophthalmos. Homozygous BEST1 mutations were previously associated with several diseases including autosomal-recessive bestrophinopathy (ARB), …
Examining Absolute Risk of AMD in Relation to Cataract Surgery
Cataract surgery is a common procedure in older adults. It is becoming more common not only by virtue of increasing age of the population, but also because of trends in ophthalmic practice and higher prevalence and incidence of late age-related macular degeneration (AMD) in persons who have had cataract surgery as has previously been reported. In the study by Klein et al, the maximally adjusted odds ratio (OR) for incidence of late AMD after cataract surgery compared with eyes with ≥1 type of cataract was 1.96 (95% confidence interval, 1.28–3.02). Including the presence and severity of early AMD lesions in the model somewhat attenuated the overall OR; however, the effect of surgery remained significant (P<0.05). Knowledge of the approximate doubling of the odds of late AMD is of limited use when making recommendations or decisions in clinical practice because this does not place the increased odds in the context of the actual risk. In the current report, we have described the adjusted attributable risk (AR) estimate and number needed to harm (NNH) to provide a measure of absolute risk when evaluating the effect of cataract surgery on incidence of late AMD.
Author reply
We are grateful to Dr Sangtam for the interest in our article, and for raising 2 interesting issues for further discussion. Based on previously available data, we find it hard to draw a simple conclusion that advanced and medically uncontrolled chron…
Endoscopic Transethmoidal Approach with or without Medial Rectus Detachment for Orbital Apical Cavernous Hemangiomas – Corrected Proof
Purpose: To determine the indications for the addition of a transcaruncular approach along with detachment of the medial rectus muscle during the removal of small apical cavernous hemangiomas using an endoscopic transethmoidal approach.Design: Retrospe…
Risk of Lens Opacity in Patients with Diabetes Mellitus
I read the paper entitled “Risk factors for incident cortical, nuclear, posterior subcapsular, and mixed lens opacities: the Los Angeles Latino Eye Study” with interest. The same authors also reported a population-based, cross-sectional study targe…