Over 750 eye care practitioners from around the globe descended on Rome for the first CIBA Vision European Eyelife Summit.
The two-day educational event attracted eye care professionals from 26 countries to a packed programme of lectures and hospitality. Introducing the event, CIBA general manager for Italy, Andrea Giummole, said that Rome had flourished on the back of hard work and a similar dedication should see optometry establish itself as a key discipline in the coming years.
The main session of the first day was introduced and chaired by Professor Brien Holden and concentrated on the global prevalence of myopia and possible ways of preventing the condition. With prevalence as high as 46 per cent in Japan, 59 per cent in Singapore and 42 per cent in the US, Holden jested that 'emmetropes are a dying breed' and that the potential visual and ocular health implications of these figures should concern all.
Now the World Health Organization has recognised the seriousness of myopia as a cause of global visual impairment, his group have been in negotiations with the World Bank for $8.6bn to help fund a global programme to try and tackle the issue.
He thanked CIBA for its support as a global sponsor of Optometry Giving Sight before presenting evidence from the latest trials involving the use of a dual focus lens aimed at reducing myopic progression. Initial results suggest a 36 per cent reduction in myopia and 38 per cent reduction in axial length among children wearing dual focus contact lenses.
Other highlights included a discussion on maintaining compliance, an update on the latest lens designs and a session on communicating lens benefits to presbyopic patients. A highlight was a reworking by optometrist Sarah Morgan of the Abba hit Mamma Mia as 'Pres-By-Opia' (Available on YouTube at www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxZ8IjdpzDg).
? Full report in next month's CLM