Eye News Roundup – May, Week 3

June 3, 2018

#LIVE2.0 #Review

1: A New Treatment from Spanish Biotech for People Suffering from Rare Neurologic Eye Diseases

Bionure, A Spanish biotech is on its way to early stage trials of a new drug aimed at treating rare neurologic eye diseases, also setting hopes alive for treatment of ailments like multiple sclerosis and other eye conditions, as reported by Helen Albert in LABIOTECH.eu.

The therapy referred as BN201, the first in its class, has already gone through animal testing successfully and ready to be tested in humans as part of Phase I trial in London. If clinical trials enjoy success, this therapy will be the only treatment capable of repairing the damage caused to the eyes by rare eye conditions like acute optic neuritis and neuromyelitis optica.

Around 130,000 people fall victim to these devastating eye conditions in the US and Europe every year, and optic neuritis appears to be one of the early signs of multiple sclerosis in one-third of the cases. Subject to the success of Phase I trials, the company aims at commencing Phase 2 trials in 2019.

2: Chemotherapy – An Unlikely Culprit Affecting Eye Health of Cancer Patients

Irrespective of how unlikely this may sound, chemotherapy can potentially affect your eye health in various manners. Part of the problem is that we still don’t know much about the true magnitude and nature of eye problems affecting survivors of cancer, according to a story covered recently by Leah Lawrence in ‘curetoday.com’.

Leah uncovers how Carolyn Choate (a 15 year survivor, who braved through stage 3b breast cancer) encountered eye problems soon after starting her chemotherapy treatment. Choate, now 60, shares how her eyes started tearing continuously, not for an hour or two, but more like on 24 hours a day, seven days a week basis. Though the excessive tearing has been reduced by 30 to 40 percent in last decade, but it has affected her life in many ways.

Eye conditions like tearing, dryness, light sensitivity, cataracts and altered vision are known to affect recipients of various cancer treatments, such as radiation, chemotherapy, steroids and immunotherapies. Experts recommend cancer survivors to regularly visits their ophthalmologists, so that timely diagnosis and treatment can help improve their eye conditions. To get a detailed account of Choate’s story, you can visit Cure Today.

3: No More Eye Injections for Children, Just a Sweet Drink to Diagnose Eye Diseases

Mouthwatering news here, especially for children, as brought to us by Jasmine Al Kuttab of KHALEEJ TIMES. No more pain and horrors of eye injections in children. Doctors in UAE (United Arab Emirates) have come up with an interesting new procedure that replaces eye injections with a sweet drink to diagnose diseases capable of causing blindness in children.

Being referred as ‘Oral Fundus Fluorescein Angiography’ or FFA, this new procedure resorts to the use of special colored dye solution paired with a sweet drink, which needs to be ingested by the child. Studies confirm that this procedure is not only pain free, but quite effective for delivering a colored dye to the retina, which helps doctors identify and diagnose eye problems with improved accuracy.

This study also holds another distinction. It’s the first one undertaken solely in UAE, which made its way to the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Ophthalmology. In fact, they plan using this new method to detect eye problems in adults in UAE as well. Catch more of this interesting development on KHALEEJ TIMES.

4: Eat Your Way to Better Eye Health

Did you know, of all other treatments and cures, you can improve your eye health by eating well? This is not your average Joe advising you for the sake of advice. This comes from a Dietetic supervisor, Brittany Buchanan, associated with the Victoria Independent School District, having Bachelor’s in Nutrition and Dietetics from Texas Tech University.

Brittany reveals that by consuming essential nutrients through our diet, our ability to ward off eye problems and diseases like cataracts, macular degeneration and glaucoma increases significantly. Nutrients needed for optimal eye health include vitamins A and C, zinc and copper in minerals, carotenoids like lutein as well as fatty acids, all of which are found in different food sources. You may resort to VICTORIA ADVOCATE to get further details on the topic.

5: Retinal Function Restoration in Mice with Eye Disease – A New Breakthrough by a CRISPR based Treatment

A publication in ‘NEWS-MEDICAL-LIFE SCIENCES’ talks of retinal function restoration in mice with eye diseases, thanks to a new technique introduced by researchers from Columbia University, resorting to the CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats), a powerful gene editing tool. Researchers used gene editing capabilities of the CRISPR to successfully restore retinal function in eyes of mice affected by retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative retinal disease.

Retinitis pigmentosa is associated to a group of rare inherited genetic disorders that cause breakdown and loss of retina cells forming sensitive tissues lining the back of the eye. It is known to strike victims in childhood and progresses slowly. Peripheral vision and the ability to see at night are affected primarily by this particular eye disease. Majority of its victims end up losing sight by early adulthood, becoming legally blind in their 40s’. It is believed to affect about 1 in every 4,000 people globally with no viable cure till date.

In fact, this is the very first time that scientists have been able to apply CRISPR technology successfully for treating a type of inherited disease commonly known as a dominant disorder. Moreover, the same tool is also expected to be used in treatment of hundreds of other diseases, such as Huntington’s disease, Marfan syndrome and corneal dystrophies. You can catch more of this intriguing news on NEWS-MEDICAL-LIFE SCIENCES.

6: Scottish Charity Award Nomination for a Health Campaign Geared to Encourage People in Attending Their Annual Eye Screening

Benedict Jephcote from ‘diabetes.co.uk’ brings us this exciting news from Scotland where a health campaign has been nominated for an award, the Scottish Charity Award. Voting for it closes at 5pm on Friday, May 18 2018, announcing the winner in an award ceremony expected to be held on Thursday, June 14, 2018. The campaign is a collective effort of The Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) Scotland and Diabetes Scotland.

The campaign is aimed at educating people about the importance of regular eye checkups. This is because a large number of people (more than 42,000 people eligible for eye screening, according to the Scottish Diabetes Survey 2016) are believed to be skipping their eye screenings within a period of 15 months.

During the National Eye Health Week, the campaign was also aided with a 90-second informational film titled ‘How do you see Scotland?’, screened across 76 cinemas, boasting of estimated viewership reaching 2.4 million people. Brian Cox CBE, a renowned Hollywood film star diagnosed with type2 diabetes himself, narrated the message in the trailer. People were educated on how regular eye screening can be helpful in preventing serious eye problems like diabetic retinopathy. To get more on the story, visit Diabetes.co.uk.

7: Inspired by Spiderman? Get Ready for Latest Wearable Eye Lasers

Every passing day seems to be blurring the line between fiction and reality, just like these newly developed ocular lasers, courtesy Researchers at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Alexa Lardieri from U.S.News reports.

These ultrathin membrane lasers are totally wearable, produced using organic semiconductors. According to the researchers, these ocular lasers pack the potential to be used for a host of new applications in domains of security, photomedicine and biophotonics. You can explore more of this interesting development at U.S.News.