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Editorial IGR 4-1
Dear Reader,
IGR and WGA
As announced in IGR 3-3, IGR is now the official journal of the Association of International Glaucoma Societies (WGA). There is only a slight change to the cover of IGR, and the contents will be independent as always. The only major change is in the financial support. IGR is now funded by the WGA which, in turn, is supported by contributions (unrestricted educational grants) from its glaucoma industry members. Although the WGA is governed by its members from the international glaucoma societies, by necessity it has strong liaisons with the glaucoma industry. Several WGA activities are coordinated with its glaucoma industry members, e.g., global guidelines for reporting and publishing. The WGA appreciates this rather unique cooperation and acknowledges the contribution of its glaucoma industry members (see inside cover).
Gentleman of glaucoma
Morton Grant died on November 17th, 2001. In an editorial in the Journal of Glaucoma, Van Buskirk and Wand wrote an In Memoriam for a man who not only made major contributions to glaucoma, but also was a gentleman in every respect. It is good to remember that the profession of glaucoma-scientist can be practised by a gentleman. It is even better to follow that example.
Publication bias
Yes, we do like positive results. And we may be disappointed by our negative results and decide not to publish them, or publishers may not accept negative honesty. Or commercial interest may preclude publishing negative results. We echo an editorial by Heijl on this matter (Heijl A. On a mission from God. Fighting publication bias. Acta Ophthalmologica Scandinavica 2002; 80: 123-124). As Chief Editor of Acta Ophthalmologica, he felt that his journal should "on a mission from God" help to avoid publication bias by accepting negative reports. This is noble. We are afraid that many of the decisions not to publish negative reports are made at an earlier, pre-journal, stage. We are not aware of any useful data on this subject. It may be prudent to avoid a journal on negative ophthalmic results. We need a good balance between positive and negative results from the very beginning: from the first look at the results to the end which is acceptance for publication.
IGR Award 2001
The reader will find the results of the 2001 IGR Award selection in this issue. What makes the IGR Award so special? It is the only award (in all of ophthalmology, I believe) which is based on a nomination process that involves all International Glaucoma Societies. This is unique and guarantees broad-based support. It was not an easy task to select the awardees from the many excellent papers. The Top-Ten papers all deserve congratulations (see page 11).
Reports
This issue of IGR publishes reports from ARVO, LAGS, AGS, and Gullstrand selections. The more than 600 glaucoma studies presented at ARVO demonstrate the vigour of glaucoma research. It is a world bubbling with activity, stimulating and invigorating. Glaucoma is among the strongest subspecialties in ophthalmology. Wax on ARVO: "In summary, this year's ARVO left me with a strong impression that, by many criteria, the pragmatic utility of science presently performed in glaucoma research compares very favorably, and in many cases, exceeds the work currently performed in analogous fields such as ..." It is good to be in glaucoma these days.
About the Editor's Selection
We are now used to evidence-based medicine. However, there is more. Value-based medicine has been called the new paradigm of this century. Can we compare the effect of glaucoma and heart failure on quality of life? Or the costs of treatment? Or the cost-utility ratio? More about this in the Editor's Selection.
The Editor's Selection discusses many more issues: how to define glaucoma; Quality of Vision and visual function questionnaires; genetics; a possible relationship between caspase, Alzheimer and glaucoma; nitric oxide; relationship between glaucoma and serum antibodies to neuron specific enolase; TGF-beta; an acute optic nerve crush model; imaging and change detection in monkeys; SAP, SWAP and more in the visual function paragraph; effective treatment for angle closure glaucoma; hair color and pigmentary glaucoma; possible greater susceptibility of the optic nerve to IOP in Alzheimers disease; acral vasospasm as risk factor; medical treatment among which the extent and use of alternative treatment; citicoline and neuroprotection; gene therapy; resistance to outflow in not so non-penetrating filtering surgery and a surprise: vaccination for glaucoma surgery.
Finally, readers will once again be surprised by the indispensable information on loggerhead sea turtles and Great Danes, all in relation to glaucoma. Did you know that geriatric cat clinics exist? And that they screen for glaucoma? How about that in relation to world blindness?
A final finally: there is wisdom and poetry in IGR, inside and outside the glaucoma publications. After all, we are glaucoma-clinician-scientist-philosophers, aren't we?
Enjoy your reading!
Erik L. Greve
