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65 EW MEETING REPORTER Reporting from the VIII Brazilian Association of Cataract and Refractive Surgery Congress, June 3–6, 2015, Costa do Sauipe, Bahia, Brazil July 2015 T he VIII Brazilian Association of Cataract and Refractive Surgery Congress opened on Wednesday, June 3, in Costa do Sauipe, Bahia, with more than 2,000 attendees, and ran until Saturday, June 6. The meeting featured interesting and challenging cases presented in a dynamic fash- ion, with lively interaction from the audience. On Wednesday afternoon, 6 sessions were distributed into 3 discussion rooms, and of those, 2 were dedicated to cataract issues or mishaps, while the third was dedicated to refractive surgery case presentations. Wet labs The first day of the meeting offered the opportunity for wet labs in addition to the educational sessions. Newton Kara Jose Junior, MD, Sao Paulo, Brazil, was the coordinator of 2 popular phacoemulsification courses, covering basic to advanced levels of cataract surgery. "We went through some of the basics that are important to all ophthalmologists," he said. "There is a clear need for more information, not only in the residency programs, but also when [at a] congress in general." The course covered basic steps of fluidic analysis to the physics of phaco, including power, aspiration, irrigation, surge, and vacuum. Cataract discussions The second day of the meeting was devoted to discussions on cataract, which were divided into 6 groups: intraocular lenses, subluxated lenses, supplementary, pupil, refractive, and glaucoma. A best case was chosen for each session, and topics covered included the Sulcoflex multifocal IOL (Rayner, East Sussex, U.K.), post- LASIK ectasia, the use of fibrin glue and amniotic membrane to heal the intrastromal ring tunnel incision, and phaco plus a multifocal IOL post-hyperopic LASIK. Complications from cataract, refractive surgery, and trauma Ramon Ghanem, MD, PhD, Join- ville, Santa Catarina, Brazil, was the winner of 2 sessions on the third day of the meeting. His first presen- tation was on traumatic total anirid- ia. Dr. Ghanem presented a case of a male patient who had blunt trauma in his eye and lost the iris. The patient underwent cataract surgery some months later, but the traumat- ic total aniridia still bothered him, and he complained of photophobia and visual impairment. "We decided to implant a German artificial iris, called CustomFlex [HumanOptics, Erlangen, Germany], which is a fold- able silicone iris [that is] hand-col- ored [and] based on the contralateral eye," Dr. Ghanem said. The im- plantation was done in the ciliary sulcus, and after 1-year follow-up, the patient still has good cosmetic and functional results. Dr. Ghanem emphasized that the artificial iris is only to restore the anatomy and does not have cosmetic indications. In a refractive complications session, Dr. Ghanem presented "The Phantom of Femto-LASIK." The pa- tient in this case had a rare compli- cation during surgery: a blurred lens during the application of femtosec- ond laser, which led Dr. Ghanem to switch to a surface ablation. Karolinne Rocha, MD, PhD, Charleston, S.C., also presented on a traumatic case, dealing with relaxing incisions with femto. "This case has shown the use of the laser to make relaxing incisions in pseudophakic patients after pen- etrating keratoplasty, called FLAAK (femtosecond laser-assisted AK)," she said. "It is interesting because the femto is programmed to patients with cataract who have the lens." She showed 2 videos on how to track the laser to make perfect incisions in the cornea and correct high astigmatism. In addition to the innovative aspect, the case showed the importance of the surgeon's role to drive technology for the patient's benefit, she said. Reporting from the VIII Brazilian Association of Cataract and Refractive Surgery Congress continued on page 66

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