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Top-Ten South African Glaucoma Society Meeting
May 25th-27th, 2001, Drakensberg, South Africa
Petrus Gous
The meeting featured Keith Barton from Moorfields as the overseas guest speaker, and he delivered five excellent presentations ranging from current concepts in wound healing, management of uveitic glaucoma, bleb-related endophthalmitis and management of dysfunctional blebs to glaucoma drainage implants. Sixteen other papers were presented by local ophthalmologists. The top X includes:
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Blebitis is an ophthalmological emergency and should be treated aggressively, to prevent the delayed management of endophthalmitis
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Selective laser trabeculoplasty IOP control results were comparable with argon laser trabeculoplasty at one year
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Trabeculectomy was more effective than viscocanalostomy in lowering IOP in the longer term in Caucasian patients
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The use of the Ex-PRESS implant as primary management of POAG shows promising short-term results, but should be evaluated more critically in longer term follow-up studies
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The T-flux implant was useful for IOP control when used in both non-penetrating and penetrating glaucoma filtering surgery
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Large encapsulated blebs should first undergo aggressive medical management, then be needled once, whereafter surgical excision of the cyst should be attempted with the application of an anti-fibrosis agent, or a new filtering procedure should be carried out
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Early hypotony post-filtration surgery was associated with better long-term IOP control
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Very high IOP in the immediate postoperative period after silicone oil tamponade in retinal surgery should be treated aggressively, with paracentesis and removal of a volume oil at the slit lamp, to prevent visually devastating complications such as 'wipe-out syndrome', central vein thrombosis, or optic atrophy
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LASIK surgeons should use the relative change between the patient's preoperative IOP and the immediate postoperative IOP (due to the thinner cornea), as a guideline and a correction factor to evaluate longer term IOP control
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The single most important factor for survival of IOP control after non-penetrating deep sclerectomy is correct surgical technique
