Eyeworld

EW NEWS & OPINION 8 November 2015 Stent is one that is equivalent to one or two medicines, Dr. Sarkisian said. "If you just think about the cost of medicines versus the cost of an im- plant like that over time, it's a game changer for third-world medicine." The interesting thing about the CyPass is that it can be implanted with or without cataract surgery, and most of the patients operated on during this trip did not have cataract surgery, Dr. Sarkisian said. Another goal, according to Dr. Sarkisian, was to teach the doctors to recognize which patients are right for MIGS. "It was amazing how many patients fit our criteria," he said, and thinks that's a testament to Dr. Sinskey's legacy and how good the doctors are at the hospital and how good their judgment is. "I think we all feel tremendous gratitude to the ASCRS Foundation and Transcend Medical for support- ing this trip," Dr. Sarkisian said. "We look forward to building a long-term relationship with the doctors in Ethiopia, and hopefully other com- panies will donate devices and help sponsor physicians through the ASCRS Foundation and allow the full spectrum of MIGS procedures to be taught to these excellent doc- tors." "The ASCRS Foundation and Transcend Medical showed initiative on this trip to address the glaucoma problem in the developing world," Dr. Ianchulev said. "We are on the threshold of something new, and missions going forward can help solve the glaucoma problem as well as cataracts, hand in hand. This is like doubling down on the output without investing in new infrastruc- ture," he said. EW Editors' note: Drs. Ianchulev and Sarkisian have financial interests with Transcend Medical. Contact information Ianchulev: sianchulev@transcendmedical.com Sarkisian: Steven-Sarkisian@dmei.org amazing to see how the surgeons were helping each other, he said, and how quickly they were able to be independent with the surgery. "That says a lot about supracho- roidal implantation and how easy it is to learn," Dr. Sarkisian said. "It's impressive to go to a country that has good phaco experience but no experience with gonioscopic surgery or microinvasive glaucoma surgery and see how quickly they picked up the technique of using the gonio- prism in their non-dominant hand and the glaucoma implant in their dominant hand," he said. Dr. Sarkisian has done other similar trips, but he said this was the first trip where it wasn't entirely fo- cused on doing surgery. "This was us teaching people how to do surgery," he said. "The impact of what the ASCRS Foundation has supported with this trip, and we hope oth- er trips in the future, is going to reverberate for generations and in some ways be more powerful than if we had just gone and put in 100 implants." Generations of surgeons will be able to pass this knowledge down in Ethiopia, he said. "Toward the end they were training each other—explaining it in the local language," Dr. Ianchulev said. "They are good surgeons, have embraced the procedure, and saw the long-term benefit." Dr. Ianchulev said this was a very special moment for him because Robert Sinskey, MD, was a personal friend of himself and his family. He is the one who initially gave the money to set up the ASCRS Foundation's Eye Institute in Ethio- pia, which now receives more than 19,000 patients per year. "For us to grow that and extend the services and train the physicians was a won- derful opportunity," he said. Although this is Dr. Ianchulev's fifth mission trip, he thinks this is the first one that has "put a stake in the ground" to solving the glaucoma problem. Transcend Medical is hop- ing that it goes beyond this particu- lar initiative, he added. A glaucoma procedure like implantation of the CyPass Micro- ASCRS Foundation continued from page 3

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