Also in the News…

Understanding VSS. To quantify how exactly visual snow syndrome (VSS) appears to sufferers, a team of Scientists from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, tasked patients with adjusting parameters of simulated visual snow on a computer screen until the image corresponded with their own condition. The 31 participants were able to change the contrast, density, size, and update speed of the simulated computer image. The findings could help VSS patients better communicate their experience and thus help facilitate assessment of treatment efficacy, while leading to better understanding of the neural origins of VSS, researchers say. Link

Alcon’s UNITY portfolio. The first new products in Alcon’s Unity portfolio – the UNITY Vitreoretinal Cataract System (VCS) and UNITY Cataract System (CS) – have received FDA 510(k) clearance. The two systems are designed to increase clinical and OR efficiency, and are expected to be commercially launched in the US in 2025. Link

IYUZEH information. The US subsidiary of Laboratoires Théa, Thea Pharma, recently developed new patient-facing resources for eye care professionals wishing to provide more information on its open-angle glaucoma and ocular hypertension treatment, IYUZEH (latanoprost ophthalmic solution) 0.005%. Link

Ocular pressure pump. Glaucoma treatment company Balance Ophthalmics has received De Novo classification from the FDA for its FYSX Ocular Pressure Adjusting Pump. The prescription-only device has been promoted as “the first non-pharmacological, non-surgical treatment designed to lower IOP for glaucoma patients.” Link

BK–contact lens links. Contact lenses still act as the leading cause of bacterial keratitis (BK), according to a new British Journal of Ophthalmology study. Looking retrospectively at 354 BK patients, a team from the Hôpital National des Quinze-Vingts in Paris discovered that at least one common risk factor for BK was evident in 95.2 percent of the patients. Of these risk factors, contact lens wear came in at 45.2 percent. Contact lens wear can induce hypercapnia and hypoxia of the cornea that can make eyes more susceptible to infection, say the study authors. Link

Ocular biomarker for CNS disorders. A study examining whether optical coherence tomography angiography (OCT-A) might be used to differentiate rheumatic disorders (RD) from multiple sclerosis (MS) in the central nervous system looked at a total of 85 patients, 41 with MS and 21 with RD. The findings suggest that OCT-A measurements of vessel density in the foveal region of the superficial capillary plexus could potentially be used as an ocular biomarker for differentiating between the two diseases. Link