Eyeworld

News Spring 2015 Vol. 11, No. 2 A Cornea Society publication Wrap-up of WCCVII W orld Cornea Congress VII officially kicked off with its Opening Ceremony, featuring an address by Cornea Society president Christopher J. Rapuano, MD, Philadelphia, high- lighting the history of the Cornea Society and World Cornea Congress meetings and the direction the soci- ety hopes to go in the future. The Cornea Society was established in 1975 with just 60 members, Dr. Rapuano said, but grew to 375 members in 1990 and has almost 1,000 mem- bers today. The society has always had international members, and over the past 10 years has made an effort to have a presence at international meetings and encourage membership from doctors all around the world, Dr. Rapuano said. Today, the Cornea Society has members from 44 countries, and World Cornea Congress VII attendees represent more than 60 different nations. Following Dr. Rapuano's address was a performance by the world's first 3D dance troupe, Freelusion. The unique performance celebrated the many na- tions represented at World Cornea Con- gresses both past and present. Keynote lectures highlight major cornea topics Francis W. Price Jr., MD, Indianapolis, focused his keynote lecture on endothe- lial keratoplasty at the "Techniques and Technologies for Endothelial Keratoplas- ty" session. Dr. Price discussed the evolu- tion of the procedure, with an examina- tion of its history, new perspectives from current practice and research, and a brief look at the procedure's future. As endothelial keratoplasty (EK) has evolved, "we've gotten more precise," he said. This sums up a fundamental aspect of the procedure's technical develop- ment over the years. In the broadest sense, this precision translates into the defining difference between PK and EK—i.e., the specificity of the tissue being transplanted, from a full-thickness graft to selective, more and more specific lamellar ones. During the "Ocular Surface Dis- ease" session, Edward J. Holland, MD, Cincinnati, presented the keynote lecture, "Limbal Stem Cell Deficiency: A Historical Perspective: Past, Present, and Future." Dr. Holland described how management of limbal stem cell defi- ciency (LSCD) has changed dramatically over the last several decades as physi- cians have gained a deeper understand- ing of the anatomy and physiology of the limbus. What Dr. Holland would like to see in the next decade of ocular surface transplantation is safer, more efficacious immunosuppression protocols, reduced or non-antigenic donor tissues, and im- provements in cultured limbal epithelial cell transplantation protocols. Culturing limbal stem cells needs to be more af- fordable, he said, and conjunctival stem cells need to be included in the culture. The best and final solution for LSCD, however, is culturing the patient's own pluripotent bone marrow stem cells and differentiating them into cornea limbal and epithelial cells, Dr. Holland said. In her keynote lecture at the "Infec- tions and Inflammations" session, Elisa- beth J. Cohen, MD, New York, discussed the management and prevention of her- pes zoster with particular emphasis on herpes zoster ophthalmicus (HZO). Pre- vention where possible is certainly better than treatment. The zoster vaccine, she said, is safe and effective in reducing the burden of illness, as well as the severity of postherpetic neuralgia. However, Dr. Cohen thinks the vaccine is best admin- istered earlier than recommended. Shigeru Kinoshita, MD, PhD, Kyoto, Japan, described 2 "out of the box" approaches he has taken to treat corneal disease in his presentation, "Future Directions in Corneal Endo- thelial Cell Biology," the keynote at Dr. Price delivers the keynote lecture on endothelial keratoplasty at the "Techniques and Technologies for Endothelial Keratoplasty" session. continued on page 3

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