Eyeworld

In the news GRF grants $1.6M in research funding The Glaucoma Research Foundation (San Francisco) granted $1.6 million to 8 researchers with 1-year Shaffer Grants and 4 principal investigators engaged in the multi-year research collaboration Catalyst for a Cure, the association said. The multi-year Catalyst for a Cure consortium is a collaborative research initiative comprised of 4 scientists; each will receive $250,000 to identify specific glaucoma biomarkers. The 8 researchers will be granted $40,000 each to further their own glaucoma research: Donald L. Budenz, MD (Incidence of Glaucoma and Glaucoma Progression in an Urban West African Population); Paul L. Kaufman, MD (Gene Therapy for Glaucoma); Richard T. Libby, PhD (Understanding Axonal Degeneration Pathways in Glaucoma); Paloma Liton, PhD (Lysosomal Enzymes, Glycosaminoglycans and Outflow Pathway Physiology); Lyne Racette, PhD (Early Detection of Glaucoma Progression Using Structural and Functional Data Jointly); Matthew A. Smith, PhD (Measuring the In-vivo Effects on the Optic Nerve Head of Acute Variations in Cerebrospinal Fluid Pressure); Shandiz Tehrani, MD (Local Drug Delivery to the Optic Nerve Head as a Novel Treatment in Experimental Glaucoma); and Gülgün Tezel, MD (Molecular Biomarkers of Glaucoma). Study finds trabeculectomy cost effective at lower cost compared to tubes Trabeculectomy is cost effective at a substantially lower cost per quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) compared with tube insertion, according to Richard I. Kaplan, MD, and colleagues. They used a Markov cohort model with a 5-year time horizon to study a hypothetical cohort of 100,000 patients who required glaucoma surgery to determine QALY gained, costs from a societal perspective, and incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of medical treatment, trabeculectomy, and tube insertion. The mean costs for medical treatment, trabeculectomy, and tube insertion were $6,172, $7,872 and $10,075, respectively; these amounts resulted in a cost difference of $1,700 for medical treatment vs. trabeculectomy, $3,904 for medical treatment vs. tube insertion, and $2,203 for trabeculectomy vs. tube insertion. The mean 5-year probability of blindness was 4% for both surgical procedures and 15% for medical treatment. The utility gained after medical treatment, trabeculectomy, and tube insertion was 3.10, 3.30, and 3.38 QALYs, respectively. The incremental cost-effectiveness ratio was $8,289 per QALY for trabeculectomy vs. medical treatment, $13,896 per QALY for tube insertion vs. medical treatment, and $29,055 per QALY for tube insertion vs. trabeculectomy. The study is published in JAMA Ophthalmology. Clinicians: Blebitis and bleb-related endophthalmitis are uncommon Blebitis and bleb-related endophthalmitis are uncommon in the United States, with a 5-year cumulative incidence of 0.55% for blebitis and 0.45–1.3% for bleb-associated endophthalmitis, according to a retrospective, cross-sectional study. K. Vaziri and colleagues used a large commercial health insurance claim-based database to identify 1,461 patients who had undergone trabeculectomy in 2007. Patient data was analyzed through the end of 2011. There were 8 cases of blebitis, 5 cases of confirmed bleb-associated endophthalmitis, and 8 cases of presumed bleb-associated endophthalmitis. The 5-year cumulative incidence of bleb-associated endophthalmitis ranged in incidence when presumed cases were also included. The mean time from procedure to diagnosis was 45 months for blebitis and 33 months for bleb-associated endophthalmitis. The study is published in Clinical Ophthalmology. EW

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