Eyeworld

Reporting from the 2015 AAO annual meeting, November 14–17, Las Vegas EW MEETING REPORTER 78 December 2015 be measured. Clinical insights are necessary for the interpretation of findings in big data. From a broader societal point of view, big data can help improve care, but data breach- es are problematic and need to be considered, she said. "Big data is a tool, and it's up to us how to use it," Dr. Coleman said. It helps inspire ideas for fur- ther research inquiry, and big data will only get bigger over time. The discoveries made from the AAO IRIS Registry will help improve care, she said. "Knowledge is power, and big data can give us knowledge," Dr. Coleman concluded. Editors' note: Dr. Coleman has no related financial interests. Strong response to femto study A soon-to-be-published massive study that questioned the compara- tive efficacy of femtosecond laser-as- sisted cataract surgery drew several rounds of spontaneous applause during a symposium on new tech- nology. The ESCRS Femtosecond La- ser-Assisted Cataract Surgery (FLACS) case control study compared outcomes in 2,814 matched femto patients and 4,987 matched phaco patients and found 86% of femto patients had improved BCVA com- pared to 89.3% of phaco patients. while 61% had 20/20 or better. Dr. Coleman's question was, why do 1% of patients have worse than 20/200 today? As a cataract surgeon, there's nothing worse than operating on a patient and then having that patient call and say his or her eye hurts and the vision has gotten worse, she said. There have been many huge advances in techniques and antibiot- ics, but infections, like endophthal- mitis, do still occur, she added. Next, Dr. Coleman discussed big data, and said it can be defined by "3 Vs." The first is volume, or so much data that you can observe and track it; the second is variety, or different types of data that are put together by data fusion; and the third is velocity, or data that is potentially available in real time. Dr. Coleman added her own definition of big data, "data that does not fit into an Excel spreadsheet." We're very fortunate, she said, because ophthalmology started working with big data back in the 1990s. "We can also get information from electronic health records about care," she said. Dr. Coleman offered some warn- ings when dealing with big data. By itself, big data can only show asso- ciations, she said, it cannot show causation. It can also only correct for confounding factors that can Michael F. Marmor MD Lecture The Michael F. Marmor MD Lecture in Ophthalmology and the Arts was given by Edmund Morris on the topic of "Two World Visions: The Myopia of Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan." One of Ronald Reagan's most endearing manner- isms, Mr. Morris said, was that when speaking in public, he wore one contact lens to monitor his audience and took one out to keep close track of his text. The lecture detailed Roosevelt's and Reagan's discovery of their own myopic vision and how their ex- treme short sightedness affected the view both had on the world. Roosevelt's epiphany about his vision came around the age of 13, Mr. Morris said, when he got his first gun and couldn't seem to under- stand how his friends were shooting "invisible birds," while he only saw blurs in the sky and trees. Similarly, Reagan discovered his own myopic vision around the age of 13, seeing the world around him as a blur. The sport of swimming particularly suited Reagan, Mr. Morris said, because of all sports, it's the one least concerned with clear vision. Editors' note: Mr. Morris has no related financial interests. Jackson Memorial Lecture The Jackson Memorial Lecture was given by Anne Louise Coleman, MD, PhD, Los Angeles. Following her lecture, Dr. Coleman received the corresponding award. Dr. Coleman said the goals of her lec- ture were to present the dramatic improvements in cataract surgery outcomes over the past century, to share the emergence of big data as an analytic tool, to evaluate the first 2 decades of big data's role in oph- thalmology, and to move forward with big data through the AAO IRIS Registry. So what's happening today with cataract surgery? In 2013, Dr. Coleman said the European da- tabase, EUREQUO, noted that in examining more than 368,000 cat- aract surgeries at 2 months postop, 99% had 20/200 or better vision, View videos from AAO 2015: EWrePlay.org Elisabeth Cohen, MD, discusses new developments in vaccination recommendations as well as a novel study and novel vaccine for varicella. Sponsored by

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