ASCRS 2023: Fortisite for corneal ulcers

Brian Shafer, MD, recapped his presentation and findings on the safety of office space cataract surgery with the Ophthalmology Times© team at the ASCRS annual meeting in San Diego.

Video transcript

Editor’s note: Transcript lightly edited for clarity.

Brian Shafer, MD:

Hi, I'm Dr. Brian Shafer coming to you live from ASCRS 2023. I'm a cataract refractive cornea and glaucoma surgeon with the Shafer Vision Institute and I'm excited to talk to you about corneal ulcers.

We know that corneal ulcers are something that bogs down all of our clinics, It's usually that Friday at 5pm that walks through the door. And when a bad corneal ulcer comes through the door that's greater than one millimeter, central. And we know that we need to culture it and start fortified antibiotics. It's really difficult.

The culturing piece is often done in our office. But when it comes time to get the fortified antibiotics, we're often sending our patients greater than an hour away, calling up this compounding pharmacy and trying to get this drug into their hands so that they can get it into their eye.

For the first time ever we have fortified antibiotics that we can stock on our shelves. Harrow Pharmaceutical now has Fortisite, which is fortified tobramycin and vancomycin. That we can stock on our shelves and dispense to our patients via a 503B pharmacy. And if that doesn't work out for you, you can do a 503A pharmacy and get it to them the very next day. We finally have the opportunity to treat these bad corneal ulcers, right in our clinics from the moment that we see them.