Canaloplasty and Trabeculotomy Results in Glaucoma Patients

Studies assessed data registry outcomes using two different devices.

Sarah Atta, MD; Baraa Nawash, MD; Samantha Goldburg, MD; and Mary Qiu, MD

Glaucoma Today

Key Takeaways A prospective, real-world, multicenter study found that ab interno canaloplasty, whether performed alone or in combination with phacoemulsification, had favorable safety and efficacy profiles. A retrospective cohort study found that standalone ab interno canaloplasty and trabeculotomy provided clinically and statistically significant IOP reductions that were sustained through 36 months in patients with primary open-angle glaucoma. A Prospective, Real-World, Multicenter Study to Support the Role of Ab-Interno Canaloplasty in Glaucoma Management Kerr N, Lubeck D, Barton K, et al1 Industry support for this study: Several study authors disclosed consulting relationships with Nova Eye Medical ABSTRACT SUMMARY This prospective, real-world, multicenter study drew on the iTrack Global Data Registry to evaluate ab interno canaloplasty (ABiC) outcomes in 254 patients (344 eyes) with ocular hypertension or open-angle glaucoma (primary or secondary, all severities) over a mean follow-up period of 20.5 months. The study assessed ABiC combined with phacoemulsification and ABiC alone. For combined cases (n = 313 eyes), at the last follow-up visit, the mean IOP had decreased from 17.2 to 14.1 mm Hg, and the mean number of medications had decreased from 2.1 to 1.3 (P < .001). Success was defined using 2024 AAO criteria2 as either a reduction in medication usage of at least one agent without an increase in IOP or at least a 20% decrease in IOP to a level of 21 mm Hg or less without an increase in the number of medications, additional procedures, a loss of light perception, or hypotony. Overall, 61.9% of eyes in the combined group achieved success, and 43% became medication-free (vs 7% preoperatively). For standalone ABiC (n = 24 eyes), mean IOP decreased from 20.2 to 15.3 mm Hg, and the mean number of medications was reduced from 2.3 to 1.5 (P < .01). Success was achieved in 35% of eyes, and 46% became medication-free. IOP and medication reductions were significant across all disease subtypes and severities.

Breaking News From the AAO Annual Meeting in New Orleans (Part 1 of 2)

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Eyewire News the Podcast reports on new products and breaking news live from thee American Academy of Ophthalmology meeting in New Orleans. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Unlocking Clinical Trial Enrollment with AI Screening

It’s not a patient population problem. It’s a signal-extraction problem.

Sunil Gupta, MD, and Joshua Koo, MS, BS

Retina Today

KEY TAKEAWAYS Current clinical trial screening methods rely on physician memory or a manual pre-screener, often leading to missed eligible patients, high screen failure rates, and lagging trial enrollment. An investigational AI model can automatically flag eligible candidates, allowing the physician to initiate the trial conversation and potential formal screening on the same day. Using the AI system allowed the Retina Specialty Institute to bring a protocol live in about 4 weeks. Every practice that runs clinical trials knows a particular kind of frustration. You open a new protocol for geographic atrophy, wet AMD, or diabetic macular edema, confident that patient volume will fill it. And then you watch enrollment crawl. The reflex is to assume the shortfall is a supply problem: not enough patients. However, in a busy retina clinic, the eligible patients are there—the problem isn’t patient scarcity, it’s patient identification. On any given clinic day, dozens of patients have the conditions our open protocols were written to study, and the information needed to identify them as trial candidates is already in the record: acuity measurements, medical and treatment histories, laterality notes, and OCT scans. However, we still need a dependable way to identify that information quickly for each patient.