The VisuMax Femtosecond Laser removes a small amount of eye tissue to permanently reshape the cornea. A femtosecond (very fast, short-pulsed) laser makes cuts within the cornea, creating a disc-shaped piece of tissue that is removed by the surgeon through a small incision in the surface of the cornea. This tissue removal causes the shape of the cornea to change, which corrects the nearsightedness. A clinical study of the safety and effectiveness of the device to correct nearsightedness found the procedure resulted in stable vision correction (no contacts or glasses) in all but one of the 328 participants at six months.

Not all patients are candidates for SMILE, and individuals should carefully review the patient labeling and discuss their expectations with their eye care professional.

Click here to read the full FDA release.

Click here to learn more about the VisuMax Femtosecond Laser.

The treatment group consisted of patients with a first diagnosis of wet AMD in 2006, when the widespread use of anti-VEGF therapies began. Patients newly diagnosed with wet AMD in 2000 (when anti-VEGF therapies were not available), or dry AMD in 2000 or 2006 were control groups.

The study concluded that introducing anti-VEGF therapies in 2006 to treat “wet” AMD did not increase the risk of AMI or stroke.

Click here to read the full abstract.

The surgeons used the PRECEYES Surgical System to initiate a membrane peel — a task requiring a high level of control and precision.

Dr. MacLaren hopes that this new system will enable “new operations that currently we can’t do with the human hand” such as gene therapy surgery (which requires ultra-precise surgery under the fovea).

Click here to read the full release.

Click here to learn more about the PRECEYES Surgical System.

The data provides compelling evidence that exercise can reverse negative impacts of aging in RGCs and modify their response to injury.

Click here to read the full article.

The two studies, one at Ruhr University Eye Hospital in Germany and the second at Eagle Eye Centre in Singapore found that PiXL was safe and effective in treating low myopia.

Dr. Lim Wee Kiak of Eagle Eye Centre in Singapore noted that “[c]urrent refractive procedures are invasive and weaken the cornea. PiXL is revolutionary in that it improves the refractive error by stiffening the cornea, while also being non-invasive.”

The PiXL procedure, developed by Avedra, offers the potential to provide non-invasive vision improvement for low myopia without compromising corneal biomechanical integrity. PiXL treats myopic refractive errors through the topical application of riboflavin followed by exposure of the cornea to UVA light delivered by the Mosaic device, which uses eye-tracking technology in order to deliver controlled cross-linking.

Click here to read the full release.

MicroPulse is a tissue-sparing laser delivery therapy that works by electronically “chopping” the laser emission into trains of microsecond pulses. This enhances the physician’s ability to more precisely control the laser effects on target tissues, offering the potential for ocular treatment with less collateral effects than conventional laser treatments.

Click here to read the full press release.

The Glaucoma App – presently available as a free download on Apple’s iTunes store – includes educational videos, eye drop and appointment reminders, medical and ocular data storage, visual field tutorial, and intraocular pressure tracker. The goal of the App is to increase patients’ knowledge about glaucoma and improve their compliance with respect to their eye drop regimen and follow-up appointments.

The survey found, among other things, that participants were more likely to download the App if it remained free of charge, as compared with a version that costs $3. Although only about one-third of participants actually used the eye drop reminders, nearly three-quarters of participants were receptive to using the automated reminder feature.

Click here to access an abstract of the article.

Click here to learn more about and download the Glaucoma App from Apple iTunes.

Click here for more information about the study.

One component of the campaign encourages website visitors to take the “blindfold challenge,” which entails filming a short video of someone performing a common daily task while blindfolded and sharing it on social media channels with the hashtag #HowEyeSeeIt.

The website already includes videos of celebrities whose vision has been diminished by retinal disease paired with blindfolded celebrities with normal eyesight undertaking daily activities to demonstrate the difficulties of living with vision impairment or loss.

Click here to learn more.

The novel design uses a polymer film around the periphery of the lens to house the drug, and release it more slowly.

Clinical trials testing the safety and effectiveness of the contacts lenses in humans are planned.

While the study concluded that more research is needed to determine the optimal continuous-release dose that would be well tolerated and maximally effective, the study demonstrated that contact lens drug delivery may be a viable option for the treatment of glaucoma and platform for ocular drug delivery.

Click here to access the abstract.