Professor Jan Bergmanson from the University of Houston College of Optometry was awarded the 2024 GSLS Award of Excellence

The four-day Global Specialty Lens Symposium (GSLS) drew some of the world’s top specialists in lens wear, myopia and ocular health to Las Vegas.

Queensland University of Technology’s Emeritus Professor Nathan Efron discussed the surprising conclusion that the chronic, subclinical inflammatory status of the anterior eye during contact lens wear is actually a positive phenomenon. In his keynote, the author of Contact Lens Practice said this type of inflammation is classified as ‘parainflammation’, arguing it reflects an upregulation of the immune system in a non-damaging way.

Craig Norman, director of the Vision Research Institute of the Michigan College of Optometry, then got into the nuts and bolts of the contact lens industry with a panel discussion of its regulatory, ethical and FDA issues. Panelists Professor Mark Bullimore, Drs Katie Gilbert-Spear and Ashley Wallace-Tucker and Bret Andre each tackled concerns around patient care, informed consent, professional conduct, business practices from their perspectives as a researcher, clinician, attorney and regulatory specialist.

Among the subjects discussed in the session on contemporary topics in specialty contact lenses was the management of paediatric aphakia, ocular suture complications, the use of scleral lenses in special populations, the management of ocular cicatricial pemphigoid and communicating strategies for myopia management.

On the final day, Dr Gloria Chiu, associate professor of clinical ophthalmology at Keck School of Medicine of USC, led a session on using technology to maintain ocular health in scleral lens wear. The panel explored the impact of solutions and materials on ocular health, fitting outcomes with profilometry and ocular health management with anterior-segment-OCT, effects of lens wear on ocular structures and the impact of ocular surface disease on technology utilisation.

Glittering careers, rising stars

The 2024 GSLS Award of Excellence was presented to the University of Houston College of Optometry’s Professor Jan Bergmanson, founding director of Texas Eye Research and Technology Center. The organisers said Dr Bergmanson was honoured for both his seminal contributions to the cornea and contact lens field and his teaching, particularly in the areas of ocular anatomy and scleral lens research and practice.

Dr Kevin Chan, senior clinical director for Treehouse Eyes PC, was also recognised as a rising star in the field of cornea and contact lenses. Dr Chan’s extensive contributions to the research, clinical care and dissemination of knowledge of myopia management goes beyond what might normally be expected in the early phase of one’s career, said this year’s GSLS awards’ judges.

Of the more than 140 posters displayed, David Hammond et al’s ‘Assessing efficacy of a dual-focus myopia control contact lens for faster and slower progressing eyes’ won the research section. The winning clinical case report with an optometry resident as first author was Emmy Tian and Dawn Lam’s ‘Corneal GP lenses for management of irregular astigmatism secondary to ocular chemical burn’, while ‘A cautionary tale: visual rehabilitation with scleral lens in a case of post-LASIK ectasia with form fruste keratoconus in the fellow eye’ by Sharon Qui and Chelsea Bray was deemed the best clinical case report with a non-optometric resident as first author.

GSLS 2025 will be held from 15-18 January 2025 at Horseshoe Las Vegas.