Also in the News…

Oertli FDA clearance. Swiss-based ophthalmic instrument manufacturer Oertli has announced FDA 510(k) clearance for its Faros anterior cataract surgery system. Used already in cataract surgeries worldwide, the compact surgical platform can also be used for vitreoretinal and glaucoma surgery, the company states. Link

Bausch + Lomb acquisition. Bausch + Lomb has announced its acquisition of US-based, privately held ophthalmic medical diagnostic company, Trukera Medical. Link

Retinoblastoma improvements. Research released at the Society of NeuroInterventional Surgery’s (SNIS) 21st annual meeting has highlighted major advances in retinoblastoma treatment in the last 15 years. “Advancement in Super-Selective Catheterization and Drug Selection for Intra-Arterial Chemotherapy for Retinoblastoma: A 15-year Evolution” reports that intra-arterial chemotherapy (IAC) – the gold standard for retinoblastoma treatment – saw an overall success rate of 99.5 percent during the reviewed period. Link

Fit for repurpose? A Nature Communications study has reported that a combination treatment of three repurposed drugs – bromocriptine, metoprolol, and tamsulosin – could potentially be repurposed for inherited retinal diseases (IRDs). Specifically, the multi-institutional team – made up of researchers from the University of California, Irvine, the University of Eastern Finland, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and others – found that the drug combination significantly slowed the progression of disease in four animal models of IRD. Link

Visual field test advances. In an effort to improve visual field test efficiency, scientists from the University of Toronto have presented a new algorithm (the creatively named “TORONTO”) that they claim can outperform the speed and accuracy of existing testing methods. Evaluating their algorithm using computer-simulated visual field tests, the team found that TORONTO could rapidly and accurately determine multiple thresholds under a wide range of subject conditions. Link

nAMD & DME substitution. Analyzing the off-label use of bevacizumab-awwb (MVASI) for both neovascular age-related macular degeneration (n-AMD) and diabetic macular edema (DME), researchers from the Department of Experimental Medicine in Rome, Italy, conducted a retrospective study on Tor Vergata Polyclinic patients who underwent drug substitution from bevacizumab to bevacizumab-awwb from October 2022 to April 2023. The findings indicate that bevacizumab-awwb could represent a viable and cost-effective treatment for both n-AMD and DME. Link

^{Image credit: Ken Eckert, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons}