Progress in central retinal artery occlusion: a narrative review.

Central retinal artery occlusion (CRAO) is a catastrophic ophthalmic emergency that severely impairs a patient's visual function, often reducing visual acuity to counting fingers or worse. Progress in CRAO research has provided new information regarding its epidemiological characteristics and led to useful assessments through various ophthalmic examinations. Additional insights about CRAO have been gained through studies of its pathophysiological mechanisms, improving intervention timing and enhancing patient prognosis. Treatment for CRAO has evolved, particularly with assistance from surgical instruments and surgical robots. Although surgical treatment is now possible, this option is not widely recognized by ophthalmologists. Conservative therapies have limited benefits compared with the natural course of disease. Recently, pars plana vitrectomy plus endovascular surgery has received considerable interest among ophthalmologists because of its potential efficacy in the treatment of CRAO. Considering the inconsistencies in rationale and efficacy of CRAO treatment modalities, it is important to distinguish between treatment effects and the natural courses of various CRAO subclasses. This narrative review explores progress in CRAO epidemiology, pathophysiology, ophthalmic examination, and treatment.

Comparison of infliximab with adalimumab for the treatment of non-infectious uveitis: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

PURPOSE: To compare the efficacy and safety of infliximab with that of adalimumab in the treatment of non-infectious uveitis (NIU). METHODS: We searched for relevant studies in the PubMed, Embase, ClinicalTrials.gov, Cochrane Library databases, Grey Matters, Grey Literature Report, OpenGrey, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), and Wan Fang databases up to September 2022. The incidences of complete remission of inflammation, response to therapy, adverse events and corticosteroid-sparing effect were evaluated. RESULTS: Eleven clinical trials covering 1459 NIU patients were included. Complete remission of inflammation after therapy was achieved in 161 (37.5%) patients in the infliximab group and 151 (39.6%) patients in the adalimumab group. These two groups were not significantly different (P = 0.37). Four studies reported response to anti-TNF therapy involving 449 patients, of whom 241/272 (88.6%) treated with infliximab and 153/177 (86.4%) treated with adalimumab achieved partial or complete remission of inflammation. No significant difference was observed between the two cohorts in terms of response to therapy (P = 0.86). There was no significant difference between infliximab and adalimumab with regard to corticosteroid-sparing effect (P = 0.58). The pooled effect size (P = 0.001) showed a statistically significant difference, with the incidence of adverse events being 17.91% for infliximab and 12.12% for adalimumab. CONCLUSION: Our systematic review and meta-analysis of 11 studies suggests that infliximab and adalimumab have similar therapeutic efficacy and corticosteroid-sparing effect in patients with NIU. However, adalimumab has a marginal advantage over infliximab in terms of adverse events. Large-scale RCTs with a longer follow-up are required to further evaluate these two anti-TNF-α agents in patients with NIU.

Five-in-one: a novel, cost-effective yet simple use of micro needle holder.

AIM: To achieve a balance between efficiency and cost in the management of medical instrument by the use of micro needle holder. METHODS: In this study, the novel multifunctional use of micro needle holders was performed between 2018 and 2019 at the Department of Ophthalmology in the 4 hospitals in Shaanxi Province. In this innovation, the micro needle holders were initially used as micro forceps to remove sutures, as eye spud to safety extract foreign body from cornea, as ciliary forceps to remove trichiasis, as well as punctal dilator to dilate most small puncta. RESULTS: Using this technique, the medical costs of both procurement and sterilization were cut off in the selected 4 hospitals. The purchase cost has dropped by roughly 50%. The sterilization cost was decreased by about 30%. CONCLUSION: The innovation in the five-in-one multifunctional use of micro needle holders saves the medical costs.