ESCRS on CXL at AAO 2016

[caption id="attachment_5992" align="alignnone" width="750"] David Touboul MD presents on CXL with corneal rings as Rudy Nuijts MD, PhD and Thomas Kohnen MD, PhD look on.[/caption] With corneal crosslinking (CXL) finally approved this year by the USA Food and Drug Administration, ESCRS members schooled American colleagues on the latest in CXL technology at Refractive Surgery Subspecialty Day sponsored by the International Society of Refractive Surgery at the 2016 American Academy of Ophthalmology Annual Meeting in Chicago, USA. In his review of indications and long-term outcomes for CXL in keratoconus, Rudy MMA Nuijts MD PhD, of the Academic Hospital Maastricht, The Netherlands, noted standard Dresden protocol CXL provides stable long-term results for visual acuity and keratometry in 90 per cent of patients. In children, epithelium-off CXL provides persistent treatment effect up to four years in 80 to 90 per cent of patients. Preliminary data suggests CXL will lead to a decrese of at least 25 per cent in corneal transplants for keratoconus. Topography-guided PRK combined with CXL has proven an effective treatment for post-LASIK ectasia and visual rehabilitation over 12 years, said A John Kanellopoulos MD of Athens, Greece, and New York University, USA. The Athens Protocol, as it is known, has advantages over alternatives such as CXL alone, which does little to address corneal aberrations, and lamellar or penetrating keratoplasty. Dr Kanellopoulos stressed the procedure is therapeutic rather than refractive in that is does not seek to correct refractice error, but to reduce asymmetric astigmatism to tolerable levels. Other presenters were Thomas Kohnen MD, PhD, of Goethe University, Frankfurt, Germany on accelerated CXL; David Touboul MD, of the University of Bordeaux, France, on CXL with corneal rings; and Simonetta Morselli MD, of the University of Verona, Italy, on CXL for treating corneal infections.            

Tags: AAO 2016