Eyeworld

EW NEWS & OPINION 20 August 2015 LENSTAR LS 900 Improving outcomes. Sophisticated IOL Prediction The on-board Olsen formula, combined with measured lens thickness provides the surgeon with premium IOL power prediction results in all kind of eyes. T-Cone Toric Platform True Placido-Topography of the optional T-Cone complements the LENSTARs compre- hensive measurement palette. Intuitive graphical planning of the toric intervention based on latest IOL calculation technology by Prof. Barrett is provided to the surgeon in the optional EyeSuite IOL Toric Planner. Automated Positioning System APS Taking biometry measurements has never been easier. LENSTAR APS assists the user with dynamic eyetracking, facilitating measurement acquisition with one click. www.haag-streit.com ESCRS Lunchtime Seminar, Master Your Toric Planning Sun, Sep 6., 1:00 PM, Room 14 J ohn Berdahl, MD, was scuba diving with his wife while on vacation a few years ago. He was in his first year of residency at Duke, and as he was scuba A physician is working on Balance Goggles to address this issue IOP, cerebral spinal fluid pressure relationship topic of exploration in Vision for Mars Challenge by Ellen Stodola EyeWorld Staff Writer diving, he began to wonder what was happening to his eye pressure as he dove down deeper in the water. He wondered why scuba divers don't get glaucoma. "If you go down just 30 feet when you scuba dive, you add 760 mm Hg to your eye," he said. "That is an enormous amount." This revelation made Dr. Berdahl start to question his as- sumptions about glaucoma. It made him think that instead of being just a pressure inside the eye disease, it is really a pressure differential disease. When Dr. Berdahl returned from his vacation, he started to follow up on his idea. He worked at the Mayo Clinic with the late Doug Johnson, MD, Rand Allingham, MD, Duke Eye Center, Durham, N.C., and Mike Fautsch, PhD, looking at 40,000 lumbar punctures over a 20-year period. They determined that people who had lower cerebral spinal fluid pressure, meaning lower intracrani- al pressure, were at a higher risk of developing glaucoma, and this was one of the first indications that the pressure difference between these matter. "As we thought about it more, it started to fit the story," he said. Around 20% of people who develop glaucoma never have a high eye pressure and a lot of people who have high eye pressure never devel- op glaucoma, Dr. Berdahl said. "So everyone understands that we're missing a big piece of the pic- ture in glaucoma," he said. "I think that big missing piece is intracranial pressure." When Dr. Berdahl did his fellowship at Minnesota Eye Con- sultants, he presented his idea to Richard Lindstrom, MD, who challenged Dr. Berdahl to take action on this problem. Now, Dr. Berdahl is working on this idea in a new way: He was chosen as part of the group working on the Vision for Mars Challenge, an initiative of the National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) at Baylor College of Medicine in a partnership with NASA to explore the ophthalmic impact of space travel. Dr. Berdahl is working on the project along with 4 other ASCRS members. The opportunity to work on the NASA project provides a unique opportunity because there is the opposite problem in space of what Dr. Berdahl was initially exploring; in space the intracranial pressure is higher than the eye pressure, which is in turn affecting the astronauts. continued on page 22

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