INTERESTING EYE NEWS & CLINICAL PEARLS

This article and video in Wall Street Journal discusses bionic eye technology for use in patients that have lost significant vision from retinitis pigmentosa or macular degeneration.    This bionic eye, seeking FDA approval for use in the United States, enables certain blind individuals to perceive large objects in black and white.

JAMA Intern Med.  2013 Jan 21:1-7. doi: 10.1001/jamainternmed.2013.1583. The Association of Aspirin Use With Age-Related Macular Degeneration. Liew G ,  Mitchell P ,  Wong TY ,  Rochtchina E ,  Wang JJ . Abstract OBJECTIVE To determine whether regular aspirin use is associated with a higher risk for developing age-related macular degeneration (AMD) by using analyzed data from a 15-year prospective cohort. METHODS A prospective analysis was conducted of data from an Australian population-based cohort with 4 examinations during a 15-year period (1992-1994 to 2007-2009). Participants completed a detailed questionnaire at baseline assessing aspirin use, cardiovascular disease status, and AMD risk factors. Age-related macular degeneration was graded side-by-side from retinal photographs taken at each study visit to assess the incidence of neovascular (wet) AMD and geographic atrophy (dry AMD) according to the international AMD classification. RESULTS Of ...

I have a patient I've been treating for glaucoma who told me about the health benefits of apple cider vinegar that she buys at the health food store.  She says it helps her vision and her circulation.  If it's true that apple cider vinegar improves circulation, then it might be beneficial in glaucoma and hypertensive retinopathy. But studies are lacking.  I found a good WebMD article that discusses the claims, what's proven, and some precautions regarding apple cider vinegar.

Healthday reports on a study with the following findings.  Women who suffer from migraines with visual disturbances like flashing lights, called aura, may be at a higher risk for heart attack and stroke," according to a study scheduled to be presented at the American Academy of Neurology annual meeting. After high blood pressure, migraine with aura was the strongest predictor for having a heart attack or stroke among these women. The risk was even more pronounced than that associated with diabetes, smoking, obesity and a family history of heart disease, the investigators noted." "Dr Tobias Kurth, lead author, said it is not yet known if the migraine with aura causes the increased risk or if there is a common factor causing both the migraine and the heart and stroke." Kurth "said it might be that a problem with blood vessels lay behind both, that genetics were involved along with other factors." A second study, also scheduled to be presen...

This report in Healthday describes the study that shows that aspirin use increases risk of wet macular degeneration.  Some excerpts from the study are below: Long-term aspirin use may slightly raise the risk of developing age-related macular degeneration, a new study suggests. The study found that the potential risk is small but statistically significant "and needs to be balanced with the significant morbidity and mortality of undertreated cardiovascular disease," Also, "the increased risk of age-related macular degeneration was only detected after 10 or 15 years, suggesting cumulative dosage of aspirin may be important," Wang said. The report, published Jan. 21 in the online edition of the journal  JAMA Internal Medicine , collected data on more than 2,300 people. Regular aspirin use was defined as once or more a week. After 15 years, about 25 percent of the aspirin users developed what is called neovascular age-related macular degeneration. The c...

We previously have believed that topical antibiotic use contributed very little to antibiotic resistance. This study reported in Medwire News suggests otherwise.

This article in the BBC reported on a study where they injected "precursor" cells into blind mice which will develop into the building blocks of a retina once inside the eye. Two weeks after the injections a retina had formed, according to the findings presented in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal. Read more .