Spa treatments

The Yorkshire spa town of Harrogate this year played host for the first time to the Hospital Optometrists Annual Conference (HOAC). As has been customary in recent years, the National Optometric Conference (NOC) and the HOAC ran back to back at the same venue, on this occasion, the Barcelo Majestic Hotel.

A corneal ectasia-themed short paper session began on Saturday morning with a presentation from Matthew Rayner, consultant ophthalmologist in Sheffield, who spoke on collagen cross-linking for keratoconus. Having described the rationale behind the technique and its practicalities, Rayner reviewed some promising clinical trial results. Rayner was unable to present his own results - the technique being quite new to his unit - but he explained that it was applicable to young patients who have not developed the natural collagen cross-linking which occurs with increasing age. Also, he advised against recommending the procedure to patients with a spectacle acuity better than 6/7.5 because these patients may experience a small drop in best corrected spectacle acuity when undergoing cross-linking.