Visian ICL with CentraFLOW
granted Chinese approval

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will reimburse the Implantable Miniature Telescope (IMT) under a revised Ambulatory Payment Classification designation, APC 0351, Level V Intraocular Procedures, developer VisionCare Ophthalmic Technologies (Saratoga, Calif.) said in a news release. The new code goes into effect Jan. 1, 2015. The surgical procedure was previously restricted only to hospitals.

RST-001, a first-in-class gene therapy application of optogenetics designed to restore vision to those affected by retinitis pigmentosa (RP), has been granted orphan drug status by the Food and Drug Administration, said developer RetroSense Therapeutics (Ann Arbor, Mich.).

The first patient in a European multicenter clinical trial has been successfully implanted with the STARflo glaucoma drainage device, developer iSTAR Medical (Isnes, Belgium) said in a news release. The study is designed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of the system in patients with open-angle glaucoma. The device received the CE mark in 2012.

Col-Treg, a personalized T cell immunotherapy based on the regulatory properties of autologous collagen-II specific regulatory T lymphocytes, has shown positive early results, developer TxCell (Valbonne, France) said in a news release. Both pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetic data showed a reduction in the severity of uveitis on clinical and histologic measures.

The University of Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh), Harvard University (Boston), and the University of California, San Diego, will share a $1.25 million grant from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to fund 2 projects that aim to "establish the groundwork for the nation's first whole-eye transplantation program," according to a press release.

RESEARCH BRIEFS

• S. Golan and colleagues compared the intraocular pressure (IOP)-lowering effect and safety profile of latanoprost (Xalatan, Pfizer, New York) with its generic variant, Glautan (Unipharm, Israel). They enrolled 19 patients (mean age at initial diagnosis 66±9 years, 14 females), of whom 17 had bilateral open-angle glaucoma and 2 had unilateral disease, who were already being seen for treatment between May 2010 and November 2012. After a 3-week washout period for the medicated subjects, the participants were randomized to 4 weeks of treatment with either Xalatan or Glautan once every evening and then, after a 3-week washout period, crossed over to the other treatment for an additional 4 weeks. Efficacy was expressed by change in IOP at 3 designated hours of the day after 1 week and 1 month of treatment, and tolerability was determined by ocular side effects as reported by the patient in a questionnaire. Both drugs lowered IOP after 1 week and 1 month of treatment. Xalatan had a tendency of greater efficacy than Glautan both after 1 week and 1 month, but the difference was not statistically significant (P=0.69 and P=0.34, respectively). Drug safety was similar, but more ocular side effects were reported after treatment with Glautan (21 vs. 12 for Xalatan, P=0.06). The study is published in Clinical and Experimental Pharmacology and Physiology.
• Larger lens vault, larger iris area, and smaller posterior corneal arch distance contribute considerably to anterior chamber angle narrowing after mydriasis in patients with cataract, according to S. Arimura and colleagues. In their interventional study, anterior chamber angle analysis was performed with anterior segment optical coherence tomography (AS-OCT) in patients with cataract before pharmacological pupillary dilation and 30 minutes afterward. Angle narrowing was quantified by the change of angle opening distance 500 after mydriasis (AOD500). A total of 102 Japanese patients (mean age 71.9 years) were enrolled; multivariate analysis indicated that smaller change of AOD500 were significantly associated with larger lens vault (P<0.001), larger iris area (P=0.003), and posterior corneal arch distance (P=0.01). These 3 factors explained 37.7% of the decrease in change of AOD500. The study is published in Graefe's Archives for Clinical and Experimental Ophthalmology.
• Toxic anterior segment syndrome (TASS) is preventable, but recognizing it, differentiating it from endophthalmitis, and starting treatment immediately is important, according to S. Cetinkaya and colleagues, who reported on a case series of 5/10 patients who developed TASS after being operated on during a single day by a single surgeon. On postop day 1, all five patients complained of blurred vision, but not pain. They had different degrees of diffuse corneal edema, anterior chamber reaction, fibrin, hypopyon, iris atrophies, and dilated pupils. Their vision decreased significantly, and their intraocular pressures increased. Both anti-inflammatory and anti-glaucomatous therapies were commenced. Corneal edema and inflammation resolved in 3 cases; however, penetrating keratoplasty was needed for two cases and additional trabeculectomy was needed for one case. Although full investigations were undertaken at all steps, the group could not find the causative agent. The study is published in Clinical Ophthalmology.