Publication trends in clinical ophthalmology journals in the last decade.

PURPOSE: To examine the absolute number and the proportions of articles published in general high-ranked ophthalmology journals for each ophthalmic subspecialty during the last decade, and to examine the publishing trends over the study period. METHODS: All original articles published between January 2010 and December 2019 in the selected general clinical ophthalmic journals were included in the study. All abstracts of original articles were reviewed and deemed to be related to 1 of the 11 ophthalmic subspecialties. RESULTS: Six journals and 10,232 abstracts were reviewed. Articles focused on medical retina were the most common in the last decade (35.22%) while articles focused on strabismus were the least common (2.11%). The total number of articles published per year decreased during the last decade (p < 0.01). There was a significant reduction in the number of publications per year focused on anterior-chamber (p = 0.012), cataract and refractive-surgeries (p = 0.014), oculoplastic (p < 0.01), and strabismus (p = 0.011). In each year during the last decade, the highest proportion of publications was focused on medical retina while the lowest proportion of publications in most of the years was focused on strabismus. There was a significant decrease during the years in the proportion of articles focused on oculoplastic (p < 0.01). CONCLUSIONS: During the last decade, there have been differences in the proportion of publications of different ophthalmology subspecialties in high impact factor journals. This probably derives from demographic changes and advances in diagnosis and treatment. The proportion of articles focused on medical retina was the highest during all years while the proportion of articles focused on strabismus was consistently the lowest.

Oculoplastic publication trends in general ophthalmology journals.

AIM: To examine the publication trend of oculoplastic articles throughout the last decade in general ophthalmology journals. METHODS: A review of all abstracts published between January 2010 to December 2019 in general, clinical ophthalmic journals was conducted. Articles that were categorized as original articles in general and clinical journals were included in the study. RESULTS: Totally 10 281 abstracts were included. Of them 465 (4.5%) were oculoplastic publications. The mean number of annual-publications was 46.5 and the mean annual-rate of oculoplastic publications was 4.51%. A significant decreasing trend in the number of oculoplastic publication in the last decade was found (P<0.01, R 2=0.770). However, there was no significant change in the annual-rate of oculoplastic publications during the last decade (P=0.191, R 2=0.203). From the 465 oculoplastic articles: 179 (38.5%) were articles about eyelid diseases, 160 (34.40%) were about orbit diseases, 92 (19.80%) were about lacrimal diseases and 34 (7.30%) were about thyroid eye disease (TED). A significant decreasing trends in the number of orbital and eyelids publications were found (P<0.01, P<0.01). However, there were no significant changes in the annual-rate of orbital, eyelids, TED and lacrimal-diseases publications throughout the last decade. CONCLUSION: Oculoplastic subspecialty deals with a wide range of pathologies in different ages. However, less than 5% of the articles in general, clinical, high impact factor ophthalmology journals are about oculoplastic diseases. One of the best way for ophthalmologists from different subspecilties, nowadays, to be updated, is to read high-impact-factor, general ophthalmology journals. Therefore, it is important that those journals will include articles about breakthroughs in oculoplastic.

Intraocular lens implantation as an isolated risk factor for secondary glaucoma in pediatric patients.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effect of intraocular lens (IOL) implantation on the development of secondary glaucoma after cataract surgery in pediatric patients. DESIGN: Retrospective case series study. METHODS: This study reviewed the medical records of children under 16 years of age who had undergone cataract surgery from 1996 to 2016 for congenital or developmental cataract. In every child an IOL was implanted in the primary surgery. Data collected included demographic information, age at cataract diagnosis and at surgery, surgical procedure, and postoperative follow-up of refraction, cup-to-disc ratio (C/D), intraocular pressure (IOP), and associated systemic and ocular anomalies. Patients with risk factors for glaucoma were excluded from the study. RESULTS: Of the 255 children below age 16 years who underwent cataract extraction surgery with primary IOL implantation, 73 (124 eyes) met the inclusion criteria. Follow-up ranged from 4 to 18 years. Only 1 patient (0.8% of the 124 eyes) developed glaucoma in 1 of his 2 operated eyes; the surgeries were performed at 10 months, 1 week apart, and glaucoma was diagnosed 4 months later. One patient had suspected glaucoma in both eyes (incidence of 1.6%). Both these children were of Bedouin origin. CONCLUSION: IOL implantation, by itself, is not a risk factor for development of secondary glaucoma after cataract surgery in a population below 16 years of age.

Infantile cataract: comparison of two surgical approaches.

OBJECTIVE: To compare the results of 2 cataract extraction techniques with primary intraocular lens (IOL) implantation in children. DESIGN: Retrospective comparative case series study. METHODS: This study included children with congenital or developmental cataract. In all cases, anterior capsulorhexis, lens aspiration, posterior continuous curvilinear capsulorhexis, and primary IOL implantation were performed. We compared 2 surgical approaches. In the first approach, after IOL implantation in the bag, posterior optic capture (OC) was performed without anterior vitrectomy (OC technique); in the second approach, anterior vitrectomy was performed without OC of the IOL (AV technique). Patient demographic data as well as ethnic origin, child's age at cataract diagnosis, child's age at surgery, axial length, IOL power in diopters, visual acuity, visual axis opacification, and complications were assessed. RESULTS: One hundred twenty-three eyes were included for surgical approach outcomes comparison; 21 eyes underwent the OC surgical approach and 102 the AV surgical approach. The mean patient age at surgery was 57.3 ± 47.1 months. The mean follow-up was 63.13 months (range 12-202 months). Epithelial lens reproliferation was the major adverse event in our series, affecting 21.1% of patients' eyes; the mean time to epithelial lens reproliferation development was 90 ± 9.70 months. There was no statistically significant difference between the two groups in best spectacle-corrected visual acuity or epithelial lens reproliferation incidence. CONCLUSIONS: In our case series we did not find any difference between surgical techniques.

Acute eclipse retinopathy: a small case series.

We present four young patients with acute severe solar retinopathy after observation of the total eclipse on January 4, 2011 without appropriate eye protection. Funduscopic findings were accompanied by optical coherence tomography (OCT) investigation of the macula. All our patients were young (range 14-29 years). In three of the four patients we have been able to repeat OCT evaluation revealing that the retinal changes were reversible, but delineating mild pathology in the retinal pigment epithelium and photoreceptors. Best-corrected visual acuity in the fourth case was 6/24. In addition, macular edema, which has been previously described in literature, could not be demonstrated by OCT. In the two cases we performed an early fluorescein angiogram, no pathology was seen.

Carcinoembryonic antigen cell adhesion molecule-1 (CEACAM1) in posterior uveal melanoma: correlation with clinical and histological survival markers.

PURPOSE: Carcinoembryonic antigen cell adhesion molecule (CEACAM)-1 is a multi-functional protein, with strong predictive value for poor prognosis when found in primary cutaneous melanoma lesions. In this study, the expression of CEACAM1 in uveal melanoma was correlated with clinicopathologic parameters. METHODS: CEACAM1 expression was immunohistochemically evaluated in 79 primary uveal melanomas and 21 liver metastases of patients who were treated at the Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center between the years 1986 and 2006. The findings were correlated with location, cell type, extracellular matrix patterns, tumor size, and metastatic disease. RESULTS: CEACAM1 was expressed in 45% of the primary tumors compared with 81% of the metastases (Fisher's exact test, P = 0.003). There was no significant association between CEACAM1 and location of the primary tumors. Histologically, CEACAM1 was associated with epithelioid-type tumors (69.6%), but not with spindle-type tumors (25.0%) (Cramer's V = 0.354; P = 0.019). Also it was significantly associated with network extracellular matrix pattern (73.3%), but not with silent pattern (11.8%) (Cramer's V = 0.510; P = 0.004). CEACAM1-positive tumors were not statistically different in size from CEACAM1-negative tumors. The higher frequency of CEACAM1 in patients who ultimately developed metastases (58.8% vs. 41.7%) was not statistically significant (likelihood ratio χ(2) = 2.069; P = 0.1503). CONCLUSIONS: This report describes CEACAM1 expression in uveal melanoma. Correlation with poor prognostic factors such as epithelioid cell type and networks of extracellular matrix pattern was found, but definitive prognostic conclusions still cannot be deduced. Additional validation studies on the use of CEACAM1 expression as a prognostic marker are warranted.