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Slideshows

Catch up on the top stories in optometry during the week of August 18-August 22.

Takeaways from this week in optometry: August 18 - August 22

Articles

The DOT lens has now been launched across Asia-Pacific, Europe, and North America, with an estimated 500,000 fitted with DOT lenses in 2025 alone.

DOT lenses for slowing myopia progression worn by a total of 1 million children

The acquisition focuses on LayerBio's OcuRing-K technology, with plans to initiate the next clinical trial.

PainReform acquires majority equity interest in LayerBio

Researchers found that patients with primary open-angle glaucoma have less agmatine and thiamine in the aqueous humor than patients without glaucoma.

Molecules in aqueous humor may lead to biomarker discovery for glaucoma, according to study

Optometry Times delivers clinical news, practice insights, and research updates by optometrists for optometrists to advance care and patient outcomes.

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Clinical Focus

Data used in the post hoc analysis were from 56 parameters from 4 testing modalities obtained in a multicenter US trial (NCT03197870).

Study finds electroretinography/pupillometry as strongest predictor of DR progression, vision-threatening complications

Additionally, the company is exploring different strategic alternative to advance its suprachoroidal space (SCS) platform and drug development pipeline.

Clearside Biomedical's Xipere (triamcinolone acetonide injectable suspension) approved by Health Canada, among other company news

The first-in-class, twice-daily topical formulation is intended for the treatment of nonproliferative diabetic retinopathy and diabetic macular edema. 

Exonate plans to initiate phase 2b CLEAR-DE trial for EXN407 topical formulation for NPDR

Nicholas R. Green, OD, FAAO, gave a presentation on the management and treatment of diabetes and its ocular effects at the American Optometric Association’s Optometry’s Meeting 2025 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

AOA 2025: What role do optometrists play in the diabetic pandemic?

Researchers hypothesize that lamivudine was effective in the clinical trial against DME because the drug blocks the activity of inflammasomes.

HIV drug lamivudine holds potential for patients with DME, researchers find

Envision Summit 2025: Patient-centered care and newest treatment strategies in neovascular AMD and DME 

At the Envision Summit 2025 in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Sherrol Reynolds, OD, FAAO, participated in a discussion on patient-centered care and the newest treatment strategies in neovascular AMD and DME. 

Editor's note: The below transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

My name is Dr Sherrol Reynolds, and I am a professor of optometry at Nova Southeastern University, College of Optometry in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. And it's indeed a pleasure to be here. This is my second Envision Summit, and I think what sets this conference apart from some of the others is that optometry and ophthalmology come together to educate, to inform, and to highlight the latest development in eye care.

And as a person who is in retina and director of our retina service, it was a great opportunity for me to be part of a panel discussion yesterday with noted retinal specialists from Baskin Palmer and other areas, and we talked about patient centered care and the newest treatment strategies in neovascular AMD as well as diabetic macula edema. And what was important to highlight is how we both as retinal specialists on their side and optometrists, can educate our patients about the latest treatment options that are available to these patient. Extended treatment so they don't have to get injections every month. What's new in the pipeline and development of treating patients with neovascular AMD and diabetic maculapathy. So it's exciting times in retina and again, today, we had another opportunity to partner with a retina specialist and my optometric colleagues and further discussion about other conditions that can mimic AMD and how we can differentiate those conditions. What are the latest treatment modalities for these conditions, such as Macular telangiectasia, type two and type one. You know, patients that have polypoidal, choroidal vasculopathy, central serous chorioretinopathy. What's new in the pachychoroid spectrum of diseases.

So in conclusion, you know, emerging therapies, things in retina. Retina is a hot topic. We're seeing new treatment for patients that have geographic atrophy–giving those patients hope. We're seeing treatment modalities where the patients can have an extended treatment. They don't have to get treatment every month, and we're just excited about what's coming down the pipeline.

I think comanagement and collaboration and working together is so critically important. Our patients, especially those that have diabetic retinopathy, diabetic maculopathy and age-related macular degeneration, usually, optometry is that first line, you know, their first entry into eye care. We're seeing a disproportionate number of these patients, so it's important, when these patients have conditions that's vision threatening that not only are we talking about their condition with them, educating them on their condition, but as we're referring them to our colleagues, our retinal specialist, we also want to make sure that they're aware of what the latest treatment option is. A lot of times, our colleagues may have a busy practice, and so these patients go in and, you know, they don't have time to ask their questions. So we, as optometrists, we serve an important role in just getting our patients, not only their diagnosis detected early, but educating them, and then getting them to our colleagues.

Additionally, a lot of times, our patients will come back and may not feel comfortable or have some fears about treatment and may not go back to the retinal specialist. It's important that we again educate our patient and work together well, because the goal is to preserve our patient's sight. So I think it's so important that we work together in doing that.

Videos

Mohammad Rafieetary, OD, FAAO, FORS, Dipl ABO, ABCMO, discusses diagnostic confusion that can be encountered when identifying macular edema in patients.

AAOpt 2024: Mastering macular edema

Mohammad Rafieetary, OD, FAAO, FORS, Dipl ABO, ABCMO:

Hello everybody, friends and colleagues. Mohammad Rafieetary here, and I'm optometrist at the Charles Retina Institute in West Tennessee, East Arkansas, North Mississippi. We are here in Indianapolis for the American Academy of Optometry meeting 2024 and my presentation was"Mastering Macular Edema: Eitologies, Diagnosis, and Management." As we all know, a lot of retinal related vision loss affects the macula and in maculur spectrum disease, many of these are caused by changes in the edema that is caused by fluid flux. You know, whether it's diabetic retinopathy, diabetic macular edema, retinal vein occlusion, macular edema, even in context of neovascular AMD, there is fluid flux into the macula. We don't necessarily call that macular edema. We call that in with reference of subretinal or intraretinal fluid. And they are also conditions that are really not macular edema. They may masquerade, you know, things like foveoschisis. It looks like pockets of fluid, but these are schisis pockets. So to go through the spectrum of these diseases, to explain, "What is swelling? What is edema? What is leakage?" These are all different things. They mayassociate with each other. You could have somebody who's got macular edema and no longer leakage. The leakage that caused the edema has stopped. And leakage is a term we use a lot of times, looking at OCT which is wrong, because leakage is an angiographic finding. So I went through a lot of this stuff, had some clinical examples, and it was a good lecture, I think. I think the audience enjoyed it, and I hope to be back next year to present something else here at the Academy.
So as far as things that are confusing to clinicians, because we use, for the most part, we use OCT to evaluate patients for macular edema, whether it is a patients with diabetic retinopathy or a patient with macular degeneration. Again, the gray areas are not distinguished between edema and leakage, not to distinguish between swelling and edema. You could have a patient with an epiretinal membrane whose retina has swelled up is increased in thickness, volume. But that's not necessarily edema, nor is it leakage. So I went through some of these again, demonstrated some OCTs, some angiography. A demonstrated case of diabetics, for instance, that one retina was extremely swollen with fluid, but the angiography leakage of it was actually less than the fellow eye that had some degree of edema under OCT, not only the OCT topography, but the OCT tomography didn't show much of a fluid, but that actually leaked more. So sometimes the leakage and the drainage of that leakage, or processing of the leakage, could cause diagnostic dilemmas and diagnostic confusion.

Conference

Parres Wright, OD, FAAO, assistant professor at Midwestern University Chicago College of Optometry, speaks with 

 Kassi Jackson on highlights from her discussion titled, "Diabetes and low vision rehabilitation," which she presented during the 2022 American Academy of Optometry (AAOpt) annual meeting in San Diego.

Editor's note: This transcript has been edited for clarity.

Hi, everyone. I'm Kassi Jackson with Optometry Times, and I'm joined today by Dr. Parres Wright, assistant professor at Midwestern University Chicago College of Optometry. She's here to share highlights from her discussion titled, "Diabetes and low vision rehabilitation," which she is presenting during the 2022 American Academy of Optometry meeting this year in San Diego. Thank you for being here, Dr. Wright.

So will you please share with us some key takeaways from this presentation?

Yes. So this presentation will highlight the effect of diabetes on the eyes and the vision loss that happens in diabetes. There are multiple types of vision loss that can happen, and that can include both central vision loss and peripheral vision loss. And because of that, oftentimes, we see these patients in low vision clinics. And so the lecture will highlight different low vision devices and different low vision interventions that can help patients who've lost their vision due to diabetes.

Great. And why is it so important for optometrists to address?

Well, as we all know, the number of diabetics is going up in our population, and people are being diagnosed younger and younger. We're all becoming a little more obese, I think. Right? And so that is contributing to the diabetes epidemic. And so optometrists are seeing more and more diabetic patients.

And so we will be seeing these patients that have had unmanaged, uncontrolled diabetes. And we'll see the ocular effects of that. And so knowing that these patients can benefit from low vision intervention is important, and getting them to the right place so that they're able to live full lives is important.

Yeah, great. And expanding on that, what does this mean for patient care?

It means that anyone who sits in this lecture even if you're not a low vision specialist, like myself, you can implement some basic low vision things, even if it's something as simple as a magnifier in order to help your patients.

Parres Wright, OD, FAAO, shares highlights from her discussion, "Diabetes and low vision rehabilitation," which she presented during AAOpt 2022.

Treating diabetic patients in low vision clinics

Sherrol A. Reynolds, OD, FAAO, director of the Retina Clinic and Chief of Primary Care at Nova Southeastern University College of Optometry, as well as past president of the National Optometric Association, speaks with 

 Kassi Jackson on highlights from her discussion titled, "The OD's role in addressing silent killers: diabetes, hypertension, and dyslipidemia," which she presented during the 2022 American Academy of Optometry (AAOpt) annual meeting in San Diego.

Hi everyone. I'm Kassi Jackson with Optometry Times, and I'm joined today by Dr. Sherrol Reynolds, director of the retina clinic and chief of primary care at Nova Southeastern University College of Optometry, as well as past president of the National Optometric Association. 

She's here to share highlights from her discussion titled, "The OD's role in addressing silent killers: diabetes, hypertension, and dyslipidemia," which she is presenting during the 2022 American Academy of Optometry meeting held this year in San Diego. Thank you for being here. Dr. Reynolds.

Absolutely. Would you please share with us the key takeaways from your presentation?

So the key takeaways from this presentation ... 

Number 1 is that these conditions: diabetes, hypertension, and dyslipidemia—or hypercholesterolemia—are increasing in prevalence, and especially in the patients that we serve. And so it's important to share this information. And not only that, that we as eye care practitioners—optometrists—we're on the front line of diagnosing patients with these diseases; oftentimes, these diseases go undiagnosed. 

As you know, high blood pressure—or hypertension—is called the silent killers. There are very few symptoms with hypertension until it's very, very high, or it causes more underlying systemic complications. In fact, when we look at the increase in prevalence of these conditions, for example, diabetes, we're seeing in 2022, that 133 million Americans now have diabetes. And that's really important. And what's more important, is that that number includes 96 million people who have pre-diabetes. These are individuals that have elevated blood sugar levels, but they're not high enough yet to be treated; they're on the road to developing full-blown, type 2 diabetes. 

And because we're seeing an increase in the number of our patients that have diabetes, we're also seeing an increase in the prevalence of diabetes-related eye disease or complications. For example, we know that patients with diabetes are up to 60% more likely to develop cataracts. We also knew that patients are 20% more likely to develop glaucoma. And more importantly, we also know as eye care practitioners that vision is important. 

Remember, patients with diabetes can have good vision, or 20/20 vision and have significant diabetes-related retinal disease or complications, such as diabetic retinopathy, or diabetic maculopathy. So again, as optometrists, we serve on the forefront of not only diagnosing patients with underlying type 2 diabetes in most of the cases, but detecting these early complications earlier, so that treatment can be initiated earlier, so that we can preserve sight. 

When it comes to high blood pressure it's the same thing. We're seeing an increase; 116 million people now have hypertension. And most of that has to do with the new guidelines that were published about a year or 2 ago, when it comes to hypertension. 

The new definition of hypertension is anyone that has a blood pressure of 130 over 80 or greater, these individuals are more at risk and need to be treated. So it used to be 140 over 90, so that now with these numbers, we're seeing more and more individuals. And that's important, because you have earlier detection. And with a new definition you can implement whether it's lifestyle changes for these patients, but also to intervene earlier to prevent underlying complications. 

And what's important for optometrists to also note is that these early signs that we see from high blood pressure in the eyes—these arteria venous crossing changes—those are significant and they can predict a patient's stroke risk, right? So it's important to educate our patients, not only about the significant signs, but also the early signs and preventing complications. 

When it comes to hypercholesterolemia—dyslipidemia—the same thing, we're seeing an increase in patients that have high cholesterol, have high lipids, are at elevated triglyceride values, and at the ocular complication, there's sometimes—at earliest—signs of the underlying systemic disease. 

So my goal is to educate my peers about the increased prevalence of these conditions. And just to remind my peers that it's so important that we play an important role in diagnosing and preventing severe complications from these diseases. 

And I will share that as past president of the National Optometric Association, an organization dedicated to advancing the visual health and minority population, that these conditions are profoundly more prevalent—or significantly more prevalent—in minority communities. 

So it's really even more important as an optometrist, when we have our patients and, you know, our patient population is changing, is becoming more diverse, that we talk to our patients about these conditions to make sure that our patients get the follow-up medical care that they need.

Great. And what does that mean for patient care for optometrists to be able to understand these risks, assess and provides that care, early intervention?

I think 1 of the key things is also patient education, right? So as eye care practitioners, we're part of the healthcare team. And a lot of these patients, as I mentioned earlier, are undiagnosed. And we as optometrists, through the eye exam and dilated comprehensive eye exams, are the first doctor that detect these underlying changes that could potentially save that person's life. And so it's important that we educate our patients about the condition. 

And I think it's also important that we follow up and intervene early. I think patient communication with the other members of the healthcare team is important as optometrists, it's important to share the results of the eye exam for patients with diabetes. Sometimes medication can be changed or augmented to increase based on the eye finding same thing with high blood pressure, if an optometrist sees these early signs, educates the patient on the importance of a yearly comprehensive eye exam. 

The key thing is to educate the patient on the importance of compliance to their medication. A lot of times, you know, when we look at hypertension, 50% of patients don't even have it well-controlled. They don't take their medication; again, it's because it's a symptomless disease. 

As part of the healthcare team, optometrists play a key role in educating the patient and increasing awareness that these diseases can impact the eyes and can potentially lead to vision threatening changes such as vascular occlusion; and more importantly, to follow these patients with a yearly comprehensive eye exam, or more frequently, if they have complications such as hemorrhages or bleeding, and appropriate referral for these patients.

Dr. Reynolds, thank you so much for your time today.

Sherrol A. Reynolds, OD, FAAO, shares highlights from her discussion, "The OD's role in addressing silent killers: diabetes, hypertension, and dyslipidemia," which she presented during this year's American Academy of Optometry annual meeting.

AAOpt 2022: The OD's role in addressing silent killers

Anthony DeWilde, OD, FAAO, adjunct instructor for the University of Missouri College of Optometry, and director of the Tele-Eye Imaging Program for VA [Veterans Affairs] Kansas City Health Care, speaks with 

 Kassi Jackson on highlights from his discussion titled, "Anti-VEGF and the eye: Past, present and future," which he presented during the 2022 American Academy of Optometry (AAOpt) Meeting in San Diego.

Hi everyone. I'm Kassi Jackson with Optometry Times, and I'm joined today by Dr. Anthony DeWilde, adjunct instructor for the University of Missouri College of Optometry and director of the Tele-Eye Imaging Program for VA [Veterans Affairs] Kansas City Health Care. He's here to share highlights from his discussion titled, "Anti-VEGF and the eye: Past, present and future," which he is presenting during the 2022 American Academy of Optometry Meeting, held this year in San Diego. Thank you for being here, Dr. DeWilde.

Thank you so much, Kassi, for having me. I appreciate it.

Absolutely. So would you please share with us the key takeaways from your presentation?

So for the anti-VEGF in the eye, when we think about the modalities we have for this, there's a bunch of different applications that are coming up. I mostly focus on the posterior segment. So talking about treating wet AMD and creating retinal vein occlusions and treating diabetic retinopathy. So whether that's proliferative diabetic retinopathy or diabetic macular edema. Some of the key takeaways have to do with, as optometrists, when do we actually refer these patients? What are we looking for? And what kind of expectations should we expect for our patients when it comes to the outcomes? Are they going to have good outcomes or not? And how are we going to co-manage that with the ophthalmologists?

Great. And what does this mean for patient care?

So for patient care, and this affects a lot of patients. So we have at least in the VA [Veterans Affairs], we have a ton of patients who have diabetic retinopathy, a ton of patients with AMD and vein occlusions. So from our standpoint of the VA [Veterans Affairs], and I'm sure with a lot of other optometrist and different patient care modalities, they're going to have a lot of these patients as well.

So for us, it's really important to understand, again, as I mentioned, when to refer them. But also for patient education, what's the patient going to be going through? How many of these injections are they going to get? What kind of expectations for how long they're going to get them? And then what should the patient expect from an endpoint? Is it something that's going to improve their vision, maintain their vision? Or should they expect any sort of change at all?

And what do you hope the audience took away from your presentation?

No, for me, what's interesting is these anti-VEGF medications came out right about the end of my student internships and the beginning of my residency. And so about 2007 is when we started getting a lot of talk about this, especially with Lucentis and Avastin, for these treatments, especially, just at the start, with AMD. And at that time, it was really interesting to see that sort of shift in how we talk to patients and how we educate them and how we refer them.

At that time, really, there wasn't a whole lot we could do for them, there were laser therapies, we could do low vision therapies, but there just wasn't anything great to help them. So this was kind of a paradigm shift when it came to treatment modality for it. And what was so interesting is to see how this is now, gosh, 15 years later, and what we're talking about. So now we're talking about things like long-acting anti-VEGF, so we only have to give it every two or three months potentially. We're talking about different types of anti-VEGF, where you can maybe even implant it in the eye and not have to give a monthly injection.

So we've really come a long way in those 15 years. And what I hope people take away from this is that the future is pretty bright for this. It's a very good therapy. And there's a lot of potential future uses for this that don't even involve the posterior segment and maybe even involve the anterior segment.

Anthony DeWilde, OD, FAAO, shares highlights from his AAOpt presentation, "Anti-VEGF and the eye: Past, present and future."

AAOpt 2022: Thinking about the variety of anti-VEGF modalities in the past, present, and future

Oct. 13, 2022, marks the 22nd World Sight Day (WSD), an annual day of awareness, held on the second Thursday of October, to focus global attention on blindness and vision impairment. 

"This is a day where we focus the world's attention on the importance of eye care," Constance, Okeke, MD, MSCE, of the Virginia Eye Consultans said.

Coordinated by the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB), the international day of awareness is a reminder to "love your eyes."

As part of its efforts, the IAPB and its members are working together to increase public awareness on vision issues and blindness, calling for a focus on vision issues and eye health.

As part of the WSD campaign, IAPB urges eye care professionals, including ophthalmologists and optometrists, to get involved.

"I think it's a great way to advocate and communicate for our patients and for what we do as optometrists; we make a big difference in our communities, and to patients' lives, and I think all optometrists should be celebrating World Sight Day," said Maria Sampalis, OD, owner of Sampalis Eye Care in Cranston/Providence, Rhode Island.

Today, IAPB is promoting a global challenge to unite the world, bringing people across the globe together to have their eyes tested. This year, IAPB is leading the call for people to prioritize their eye health and asking the world’s leaders to ensure eye care is accessible, available, and affordable to everyone everywhere.

"World Sight Day means a little bit different for me, not being from here originally," Adam Ramsey, OD, co-founder of Black EyeCare Perspective, said. "Understanding that the gift that we have—in this wonderful country that we're living in right now—where there is access to care so readily available."

In honor of World Sight Day, optometrists and ophthalmologists reflect on what today means to them.

Video Series

Optometrists and ophthalmologists reflect on the meaning of World Sight Day

 Alex Delaney-Gesing speaks with Ashley Tucker, OD, FAAO, FSLS, Dipl ABO, a therapeutic optometrist at the Contact Lens Institute of Houston and Bellaire Family Eye Care in Bellaire, Texas, on highlights from her discussion titled, "Myopia management: past, present, and future," which she presented during this year's 115th annual South Carolina Optometric Physicians Association’s 115th annual meeting in Hilton Head, South Carolina.



Editor's note: The following transcription has been lightly edited for clarity.




Could you share a highlights version of your presentation?

Myopia is such a big topic in optometry right now. Most people know this statistic, but by the year 2050, 50% of the world's population will be myopic—which is drastically different than 15, 20, or100 years ago.

So managing myopia is more important than it's ever been. Kids are becoming myopic earlier and progressing longer. And that puts them at a higher risk as an adult for retinal diseases like macular degeneration, retinal detachment, and then also cataracts.




Why is this such an important topic of discussion?



We know now that we don't just treat myopia by putting patients in simple glasses or contact lenses; we manage myopia, which is very different. So the goal of management is to reduce progression by at least 50%, which will ultimately reduce an adult's risk factor for getting retinal diseases by a significant amount.

What are the key takeaways that you'd like attendees to learn?

We have so many options; we really have an option for any patient or family that wants their child in myopia management. We have FDA-approved soft daytime contact lenses, overnight orthokeratology lenses, and then we have off-label options, like soft multifocal contact lenses, atrophying, or pharmaceutical therapy.

And then in the future—hopefully very soon—we'll have a spectacle option as well. So our portfolio for myopia management is really broad, and we should be able to have an option for every family that wants myopia management for their child.

Ashley Tucker, OD, FAAO, FSLS, Dipl ABO, shares highlights from her discussion titled, "Myopia management: past, present, and future," presented during this year's 115th annual SCOPA meeting.

SCOPA: Managing myopia for the future

Alex Delaney-Gesing speaks with Leo P. Semes, OD, FAAO, professor emeritus of optometry at the University of Alabama-Birmingham, on the highlights and key takeaways from his discussion titled "Artificial intelligence and telemedicine," presented during the 115th annual South Carolina Optometric Physicians Association (SCOPA) meeting in Hilton Head, South Carolina.

Editor's note: this transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.



Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a topic that I've been following for probably 5 or so years. And as I dug into the history, it's quite interesting; it really began back in the 1930s. So it has quite a long history. It's based on algorithms and whether that algorithm is something as simple as how you do addition of big numbers or long division

The algorithm for looking at, for example, a patient with diabetic retinopathy, is specifying the severity of that, and then using that as a determination for treatment. And then if the patient is treated, following that patient to see if there is stagnation, stability of the diabetic retinopathy, or regression, which is what we're hoping for.

And some of the AI paradigms now demonstrate that there is the possibility of regression of diabetic retinopathy, from a physical standpoint, of how the retina looks, and also in terms of visual performance. And that's what to me is probably the most exciting aspect of what we can do with AI; to say, “Okay, this is a patient who's got a certain level of diabetic retinopathy, the patient qualifies for treatment. Then 3 months following treatment, yes, the retina looks better, but they have improvement in visual performance.”

So visual acuity—quantitatively—numbers look better. And as a consequence of that, patients could enjoy a better lifestyle.





Why would you say this is such an important topic of discussion? 



Well, one of the reasons is that—aside from age-related macular degeneration (AMD)— one of the major causes of vision loss, especially among the working age population. is secondary to diabetic retinopathy (DR). And it's estimated that there's a segment of the population perhaps as high as 25%, who have pre-diabetes. So patients presenting for a vision exam, or vision irregularities, or even a periodic examination, might be discovered with certain changes that relate to DR. And then a diagnosis is made and the patient can be managed systemically, as well as ocularly.





What are the key takeaways you'd like attendees to learn from this?



Probably the biggest thing is going to be the new staging paradigms for DR and how those relate to when a patient is going to need treatment. And if the patient is not at high risk and not a candidate for treatment, then emphasizing to the patient the importance of maintenance of systemic management strategies, and regular ophthalmic exams.

 Leo P. Semes, OD, FAAO, highlights his presentation on "Artificial intelligence and telemedicine," presented during the 115th annual SCOPA meeting.

SCOPA: Intersection of artificial intelligence and telemedicine

Alex Delaney-Gesing speaks with Leo P. Semes, OD, FAAO, professor emeritus of optometry at the University of Alabama-Birmingham, on the highlights and key takeways from his discussion titled "A new look at AMD," presented during the 115th annual South Carolina Optometric Physicians Association (SCOPA) meeting in Hilton Head, South Carolina.

Editor's note: this transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.



Could you share a highlights version of your presentation?



One of the things about age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is that the focus is shifting—not has shifted but is shifting—from the emphasis on improving and maintaining vision in patients with wet AMD to patients with dry AMD. And it used to be that there was very little we could do for these patients, except to maybe recommend some low-vision training, or some adjunctive strategies.

And now there are some emerging treatments for these patients, which will help to minimize their progression. And just like with the early stages and early treatments for wet AMD, it's some strategies that are trying to just contain things and not necessarily improve vision. 

But as I look at the horizon, there will probably be some treatment strategies that will not necessarily reverse, but maybe improve the dry AMD patient. So that's at one extreme of the AMD continuum.

And the other is, well, what do we do about patients who have early AMD. And there is now a wealth of material from the Age-Related Eye Disease study series— the most recent one, I think, was #30. 

So there's a wealth of information there that practitioners can now incorporate into their patient discussions and recommend some dietary modifications and some lifestyle modifications that would be beneficial for the patient so that they don't reach the stage of vision loss that we see with either dry or AMD.






For a couple of reasons, it's important: One is the fact that, with the aging population, the likelihood of developing AMD increases. So we see the ageing of the population. And as patients age, they don't necessarily become inactive. 

So we want patients to be able to enjoy their later years and continue to be productive and have a lifestyle that's not impaired by vision loss.




What are the key takeaways you'd like attendees to learn?


Leo P. Semes, OD, FAAO, discusses his presentation on, "A new look at AMD," during the South Carolina Optometric Physicians Association's annual meeting.

DME

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