The 2012 Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology Annual Meeting
The annual meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology was held from May 6 to 10 in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and attracted approximately 12,400 participants from around the world, including clinicians, academicians, allied health professionals, and others interested in vision and ophthalmology. The conference highlighted recent advances in ophthalmology, with presentations focusing on the latest research in amblyopia, cataracts, glaucoma, macular edema, myopia, age-related macular degeneration (AMD), and diabetic retinopathy.
In one study, Indu Vedamurthy, Ph.D., of the University of Rochester in New York, and colleagues found that active video game therapy was effective for visual recovery in adult patients with amblyopia.
"We took advantage of our past research showing that playing action video games is good for vision. We adapted an entertainment video game to the needs of amblyopic patients, and asked them to play with their amblyopic eye," Vedamurthy said. "This novel active game therapy improved visual acuity in the amblyopic patients we have enrolled so far. We conclude that our new custom game platform has promising potential for amblyopia treatment."
Program No. 3892
In another study, Daniel Roth, M.D., of the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick, N.J., and colleagues evaluated the cumulative incidence of visual changes associated with aflibercept as compared to ranibizumab in patients with neovascular AMD.
"At the end of the 12 months, both drugs provided similar visual outcomes. However, we also found that the percentage of patients who gained five letters, 10 letters, or 15 letters at each time point during the study was similar for all groups. Thus, not only were the final visual gains the same at the end of the study, but the rate of visual gain was the same," Roth said. "We are now fortunate to have highly efficacious intravitreal pharmaceuticals to treat neovascular or wet AMD, and may be able to maintain excellent visual outcomes with a lesser treatment burden by increasing the interval between injections in some patients."
Several authors disclosed financial relationships with pharmaceutical companies, including Regneron and Bayer HealthCare, co-manufacturers of aflibercept, and Genentech, a manufacturer of ranibizumab.
Program No. 2042
In the Inhibit VEGF in Age-related choroidal Neovascularisation (IVAN) study, Usha Chakravarthy, Ph.D., of Queen's University Belfast in the United Kingdom, and colleagues found that bevacizumab was equally as effective as ranibizumab in the treatment of neovascular AMD.
The investigators evaluated 610 individuals with neovascular AMD and found no functional difference in the effects of ranibizumab and bevacizumab after one year of treatment. In addition, both drugs had similar effects on preventing vision loss. The investigators also assessed whether giving treatment as needed was as effective as administering treatment on a monthly basis and found that both applications had equally favorable results.
"The IVAN results at the end of the first year show that Lucentis (ranibizumab) and Avastin (bevacizumab) have similar effectiveness. Regardless of the drug received, or treating monthly or as needed, sight in the affected eye improved by between one and two lines on a standard eye test," Chakravarthy said in a statement.
Several authors disclosed financial relationships with pharmaceutical companies, including Novartis, a manufacturer of ranibizumab.
Abstract
