EURETINA 2024: Magnification implant for GA

Nicole Eter, MD, discussed the use of a magnification implant being used in patients with geographic atrophy (GA) at from this year's EURETINA congress being held in Barcelona, Spain, which took place September 19-22, 2024.

Video Transcript:

Editor's note: The below transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Nicole Eter, MD: My name is Professor Nicole Eter. I'm the Head of Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Munster Medical Center in Germany, and I'm the incoming president of EURETINA.

I was talking about the Samsara SING implant, which is a magnification lens that is implanted into the eye for patients with geographic atrophy. You might have heard that in the EU, we do not have an EMA approved medication for geographic atrophy, unfortunately. So the only thing we can offer patients right now is magnification. And so this implant is put into one eye. The other eye of the patient will then function for the distance visual acuity, and the one with the implant will help with this magnification to read, if possible, or at least to see things in a closer distance. I don't think that everyone in the symposium will come home and implant this device themselves, but it's important to know about it and to know about the option. And so, if the patient is maybe asking for something like this, that you can advise the patient is a to go to a center where it is implanted.

And of course, if you say, "EURETINA," then everyone thinks of the convention, but that's only 4 days, and EURETINA is much more. It is a society, and it's growing everywhere, and there's a lot of things you can do in between. So we have webinars that are posted on the web page, podcasts, for example. Then we have a very active young retina specialist, the YOURS, who are they are themselves, giving some content and producing content to share on social media. Just drop us an email, and we can connect you then with the YOURS, and they have a very, very tight exchange, and everyone can be involved in EURETINA, and I think it's especially good to to become a member at an early age, because we have membership programs, and so young retina specialists, or even if you're not yet a retina specialist, but you want to be one in the future.

I think that's the these guys are really benefit from what we can offer, and especially also female young ophthalmologists, because we have this Women in Retina program. So, there are there's a special mentorship program for female physicians. And so I would say, the younger they are, the more they benefit from a membership.

We are right now, as a board, we are right now working on guidelines. So we want to come up with the retina guidelines for retina specialists. So the aim is to harmonize the standard of knowledge in Europe, and even around Europe, because we do not have members, only from Europe, but also from all over the world.

Okay. So, yes. So this was the second year where we have the FEBOS-R Specialty Exam in retina. We have 53 candidates who passed, and are now specialists, obviously specialists in in retina. And so next year, we will have the third one. November 18, [the] application will be open on the website, and everyone can apply who has either taken and passed the general DO or a board certificate from a specific country and has worked 2 years in a retina specialty. Well, my biggest dream is, of course, that we are growing. I mean, we have been growing this year. There are over 8,000 positions here. So hopefully, we'll grow further, and we will be a society with maybe even more to share, and in all different kinds of retina subspecializations as well.