Eye
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Dry eye has gained recognition as a public health problem given its prevalence, morbidity, and cost implications. Dry eye can have a variety of symptoms including blurred vision, irritation, and ocular pain. Within dry eye-associated ocular pain, some patients report transient pain whereas others complain of chronic pain. ⋯ Clinical evidence of dysfunction includes the presence of spontaneous dysesthesias, allodynia, hyperalgesia, and corneal nerve morphologic and functional abnormalities. Both peripheral and central sensitizations likely play a role in generating the noted clinical characteristics. We will further discuss how evaluating for neuropathic ocular pain may affect the treatment of dry eye-associated chronic pain.
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It is becoming increasingly evident that epigenetic mechanisms influence gene expression and can explain how interactions between genetics and the environment result in particular phenotypes during development. The extent to which this epigenetic effect contributes to phenotype heritability in age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is currently ill defined. However, emerging evidence suggests that epigenetic changes are relevant to AMD and as such provide an exciting new avenue of research for AMD. ⋯ Search strategy We searched the MEDLINE/PubMed database following MeSH suggestions for articles including the terms: 'ocular epigenetic mechanisms', 'human disease epigenetics', and 'age-related macular degeneration genetics'. The headline used to locate related articles in PubMed was 'epigenetics in ocular disease', and to restrict search, we used the headlines 'DNA methylation in age related macular degeneration', 'altered gene expression in AMD pathogenesis'. A manual search was also based on references from these articles as well as review articles.
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Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) represent a gold standard for evaluating therapeutic interventions. However, poor reporting clarity can prevent readers from assessing potential bias that can arise from a lack of methodological rigour. The Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials statement for non-pharmacological interventions 2008 (CONSORT NPT) was developed to aid reporting. RCTs in ophthalmic surgery pose particular challenges in study design and implementation. We aim to provide the first assessment of the compliance of RCTs in ophthalmic surgery to the CONSORT NPT statement. ⋯ The reporting of RCTs in ophthalmic surgery is suboptimal. Further work is needed by trial groups, funding agencies, authors, and journals to improve reporting clarity.