Research progress of foveal avascular zone in retinal vascular disease / 中华眼底病杂志

The fovea avascular area (FAZ) is an area of the retina surrounded by a continuous capillary plexus that does not have any capillary structure of its own. FAZ is an important region for the formation of fine vision function. The changes of its morphology and surrounding capillary density reflect the degree of macular ischemia, and are closely related to retinal vascular diseases such as diabetic retinopathy, retinal vein occlusion, Coats disease, idiopathic macular telangiectasia, and retinopathy of prematurity. Early observation of FAZ region changes in patients with retinal vascular disease by optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) can evaluate the severity and prognosis of the disease. However, the measurement error of FAZ-related data is still a problem that cannot be ignored. At present, OCTA devices of various manufacturers have different methods and algorithms for measuring and analyzing FAZ, which makes it impossible to compare the measured data between different devices. It is believed that with the continuous progress of OCTA related technology, more accurate data of FAZ regional changes can be obtained, which will bring more help to clinical work.

Comparison of problem/case-based learning with lecture-based learning in the clinical teaching of ophthalmology

Background: Few researches have focused on the effectiveness of problem/case-based learning (PCBL) method in clinical teaching of ophthalmology among undergraduate students and their evaluation feedbacks to this method. Knowledge of current different approaches of teaching clinical ophthalmology might help to achieve better learning effect. So, our aim was to compare problem/case-based learning (PCBL) with lecture-based learning (LBL) in the education of medical students and investigate the student perceptions of teaching ophthalmology by the PCBL approach.Methods: Two classes of fourth-year medical students were divided into two groups by class-based randomly and were taught the ocular trauma course. A total of 76 students studied in lectures and 87 students learned in a problem/case -based learning discussion session. Five questions were designed on ocular trauma in the final examination to evaluate the effectiveness of these two teaching methods. Students with the PCBL perceptions were collected to analyse the effectiveness of the PCBL.Results: Comparing with LBL, a significantly higher overall examination score occurred in the PCBL group. Most students in the PCBL class agreed that PCBL performed better in improving their understanding of the subject materials, promoting learning motivation, and enhancing the communication skill and clinical thinking method.Conclusions: The PCBL is an effective approach to assist students in understanding the clinical diagnosis and treatment of ocular diseases. This teaching method helps students increase the motivation of improving learning and problem-handling skills.

Research progress of oxidative stress in the pathogenesis of diabetic retinopathy / 中国临床药理学与治疗学

Diabetic retinopathy is one of the most common and serious chronic complications. Recently, great quantities of researches show that there are correlations between the oxidative stress and the diabetic retinopathy. Hyperglycemia causes the oxidative stress, and it damages the retina through injuring the endothelial cells and mitochondria, generating abnormal metabolism pathway and promoting the inflammatory response, then the serious consequences have been caused such as retinal ischemia or even detachment. In clinic the antioxidant treatment has achieved some results. So this paper focuses on the relationship of the oxidative stress and the incidence of the diabetic retinopathy.