Evaluation of pre- and post-surgery reading ability in patients with epiretinal membrane: a prospective observational study.

BACKGROUND: This study aimed to investigate the pre- and post-surgery reading ability in patients with idiopathic epiretinal membrane (ERM) to evaluate whether measurement of reading performance is a helpful test in addition to visual acuity (VA) as an assessment measure. METHODS: This prospective observational study involved 42 eyes of 40 patients with idiopathic ERM. Best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA), reading ability, and metamorphopsia score were evaluated at baseline and at 3, 6, and 12 months post-surgery. As the outcome measure, the reading ability of each patient (i.e., overall performance) was examined with MNREAD-J, the Japanese version of the MNREAD reading acuity (RA) charts, to determine RA, critical print size (CPS), and maximum reading speed (MRS). Generally, a difference of 0.2 logMAR or more is considered a significant change in BCVA. Thus, as a subgroup analysis, we additionally evaluated the BCVA and reading ability of the patients with a BCVA difference of 0.1 logMAR or less between at baseline and at 12 months post-surgery. RESULTS: Relative to their values at baseline, the subjects exhibited significantly improved BCVA, RA, and CPS throughout the post-surgery examination period (P < 0.001) and significantly improved MRS at 12 months post-surgery (P = 0.04). No significant change in the vertical metamorphopsia score was observed throughout the post-surgery follow-up period. However, and compared to the value at baseline, significant improvements in the horizontal metamorphopsia score were observed at 3, 6 (P < 0.05), and 12 months (P < 0.001) post-surgery. In the subgroup analysis of the 23 eyes that exhibited a BCVA improvement of 0.1 logMAR or less, the median BCVA did not change, but the median RA and CPS improved by 0.2 logMAR. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings showed that the surgical removal of ERM improves reading ability, even when the BCVA score does not improve. The measurement of reading performance appears to be a helpful test in addition to VA as a measure for assessing the surgical removal of ERM.

[HLA-class I gene polymorphisms in Japanese Stevens-Johnson syndrome patients with ocular surface complications].

PURPOSE: Our previous study of polymorphisms in the HLA-class I genes of 71 Japanese SJS/TEN patients with ocular surface complications and 113 Japanese healthy controls showed that in the Japanese, HLA-A*0206 was strongly associated with SJS/ TEN. In this study, we examined 118 Japanese SJS/ TEN patients with ocular surface complications and a new control group consisting of 220 healthy Japanese volunteers, and investigated the association between HLA class I antigens, HLA-A, B, C, and the SJS/ TEN. METHODS: For HLA genotyping we enrolled 118 Japanese patients with SJS/TEN in the chronic or sub-acute phase at Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine; all presented with ocular surface complications. We also enrolled 220 healthy Japanese volunteers. We performed polymerase chain reaction amplification followed by hybridization with sequence-specific oligonucleotide probes (PCR-SSO). Results : HLA-A*0206 was most strongly associated with Japanese SJS/TEN patients with ocular surface complications (carrier frequency: p = 0.0000000002, OR = 5.2; gene frequency : p = 0.000000007, OR = 4.2). CONCLUSION: HLA-A* 0206 is strongly associated with Japanese SJS/TEN patients with ocular surface complications.