JFO Open Ophthalmology最新文献

Purpose

To validate the Spanish version of the Impact of Vision Impairment for Children (IVI_C), a vision-related quality of life (VRQoL) questionnaire, using Rasch Analysis.

Methods

A translation and adaptation of the English IVI_C test was performed according to the standards published in PedsQL. The IVI_C Spanish version of the test was administered by email to 101 Sant Joan de Déu Hospital patients who were invited to respond twice, with a minimum interval of two months. The age of the patients ranged from 8 to 18 years. Statistical software SPSS 19.0 (Armonk, NY: IBM Corp.) was used to perform the statistical analyses to test the internal consistency of the scale, the test-retest, the intraclass correlation consistency and the Rasch Analysis.

Results

Results ranging from good to excellent were obtained for the internal consistency of the scale, the test-retest and the intraclass correlation, depending on the scale used, and Rasch Analysis validated to simplify the original test. The statistical analysis of the 24 original items was carried out, and the 6 items that provided almost no contribution to the overall score were removed. Thus, 18 out of the 24 items in the original test were selected.

Conclusion

The Spanish version of the IVI_C QoL test with 18 items is a valid tool to assess the quality of life of patients with visual loss who do not have additional disabilities.

Purpose

Female medical trainees may face additional challenges to balancing career and personal goals, including parenthood. Barriers include lengthened training time, career advancement delay, and unfavorable competency assessments. This study examined advertised parental leave benefits across all accredited United States (US) Ophthalmology Residency Programs to examine the relationship between the gender of ophthalmology department leadership and parental leave policies.

Methods

Programs identified using the Fellowship and Residency Electronic Interactive Database. Advertised parental leave policies and figurehead gender (department chair and program directors) were extracted from institutional websites. The main outcome was prevalence of advertised parental leave benefits among programs. Secondarily, chi-square and phi correlation tests assessed association of figurehead gender with advertised benefits. Kruskal-Wallis analysis with post-hoc pairwise testing compared advertised benefits among US geographic regions.

Results

124 ophthalmology training programs were identified. Females comprised 15.32% of all department chairs, 41.94% of all program directors, and held these positions in 37.10% of programs with advertised paid parental leave. 45 (36.3%) programs included paid parental leave policies on their institutional website. Gender of program director (p = 0.54) and department chair (p = 0.40) were not significantly associated with advertised parental leave benefits. Regional analysis revealed no significant differences in advertised policies between the eastern, central, and western US.

Limitations

Our methodology could not identify non-advertised albeit documented parental leave.

Conclusion

Most programs did not advertise parental leave benefits. Such advertised benefits were not significantly associated with figurehead gender. Continued efforts are needed to improve acceptance and communication of parental leave benefits during training.

Purpose

To examine the determinants of retinoblastoma treatment delay in children diagnosed with retinoblastoma in Ghana.

Methods

: The study is a retrospective cross-sectional review of hospital records of children with retinoblastoma from treatment centers in Ghana from 2014 to 2019. Data were collected by trained ophthalmology residents and nurses and entered into a REDCap (Research Electronic Data Capture) database. Frequencies and proportions were used in describing categorical variables. Independent samples t‑test and the Mann-Whitney U test were used to compare equality of means and median values. P-values less than 0.05 were considered statistically significant.

Results

Of the 234 children, 224 (95.7%) were referred cases and the remaining 10 (4.3%) were walk-ins. The average distance traveled by the children from home to retinoblastoma treatment center was 118.9 ± 128.4 km. The mean parental lag time was 7.6 ± 4.6 months. Longer parental lag time was associated with older age at presentation and unilateral disease (p < 0.05). The mean referral lag time was 0.6 ± 0.5 months. Longer referral lag time was associated with patients who abandoned treatment or died compared with those who survived at last follow-up (p = 0.036). A total of 125 (55.8%) cases abandoned treatment after being referred and seen at a treatment center.

Conclusion

Analysis of the pathway from the observance of the first sign of retinoblastoma to presentation to a health facility reveals a need to reduce both parental and referral lag times in order to improve retinoblastoma outcomes. Future studies may help to unravel factors contributing to long parental lag time, referral lag time and abandonment of treatment in Ghana.

Intraocular inflammation can affect nearly all structures of the eye from anterior to posterior. Rarely, intraocular inflammation is caused by a paraneoplastic syndrome (PNS). In cancer-associated retinopathy (CAR), the symptoms, which typically affect both eyes, include severe loss of vision, photosensitivity, ring scotoma, and visual field defects [1]. The following case outlines a diagnostic challenge with an initial clinical presentation of photopsias and isolated dense vitritis.

Purpose

To assess the gender distribution of editorial board members of the leading ophthalmology journals according to SCImago Journal and Country Rank (SJR).

Methods

To evaluate the editorial boards of the ophthalmological journals in category Q1 of the SJR in a cross-sectional study. The primary outcome measured was the proportion of women as editor-in-chief and editorial board members. For the top 10 journals, the internal composition of the editorial board was analyzed and classified into four categories. The study was performed in Oftalmosalud Instituto de Ojos, Lima, Peru, from July to October 2022. In addition, the authors analyzed the women’s participation in previous years as editorial board members.

Results

Thirty-two ophthalmology journals were classified within the Q1 category. Female representation as editor-in-chief of Q1 ophthalmology journals was 14.63% (6/41) and as part of the editorial board was 32.9% (122/371). In the top 10 ophthalmology journals, none of the editors-in-chief (Category I) was a woman (p < .001); 11% (11/100) in category II (p < .001), 38.42% (88/229) in Category III (p < .001), and 32.25% (10/31) in category IV (p = 0.07) were women. There was no significant correlation between the percentage of female representation and the SJR (r = 0.32, p = 0.07).

Conclusion

Women are underrepresented among editorial board members of the leading ophthalmological journals and this disparity is greater in senior positions. However, there has been an increase in participation through the years.

Background

Fibromyalgia (FM) is a widespread musculoskeletal pain disorder. Although the pathogenesis of fibromyalgia is unknown, central neurotransmitter systems and autonomic nervous system abnormalities may play a critical role. Today, the diagnosis is made by clinical findings, and there is no objective, confirmatory tests. Studies examining ophthalmic structures in patients with fibromyalgia using optic coherence tomography (OCT) and optic coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) sought objective evidence of both the neurodegenerative and vascular processes of the disease. In the results of these few studies, some findings of retinal and vascular density changes were found.

Materials and methods

In this cross-sectional study, retinal superficial and deep vascular plexus density (SVP and DVP), choroid thickness, and choriocapillaris density were investigated in 42 patients with fibromyalgia and 42 healthy controls using OCTA.

Results

42 fibromyalgia patients, including 42 age- and gender-matched healthy controls, were enrolled in this study. Central macular thickness (CMT) was found to be significantly thinner in fibromyalgia patients than in healthy groups. Retinal SVP and DVP were evaluated. No significant differences were observed between FM patients and control subjects as regards DVP density in the macular area. However, SVP density significantly decreased in the superior and inferior quadrants of fibromyalgia patients compared to the healthy controls. There was no significant difference in choriocapillaris density and choroid thickness between the patients with fibromyalgia and the healthy group in all quadrants.

Conclusion

We evaluated detailed ophthalmic vascular structures of patients with fibromyalgia using OCTA in our study. We found changes only superior and inferior quadrants of retinal superficial structures. There was no significant difference in other superficial vascular quadrants of the retina, deep vascular structures, and choriocapillaris density. On the other hand, the central macular thickness was thinner in FM patients. Therefore, these data show that the role of vascular processes in the pathogenesis of fibromyalgia is small, but thinner central macular thickness in FM may be significant as an objective finding of the disease