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.
