It was an incredible experience heading down to UKEGS 2024 earlier this month in Southampton. The entire Glaucoma UK team, along with the UKEGS overseeing panel Nishani Amerasinghe, Andrew Tatham, Professir Anthony King and Professor Gus Gazzard, took great care of Tom and I during our stay and we managed to get some wonderful content. Some snapshots of it can be found below, but you will also see links taking you to our daily newsletters from the event which, in our humble opinion, are the best way to siphon experience from a conference if you were unable to attend. So, without further ado, put your feet up, open the biscuit tin, and enjoy.
Five Nations – Regional cases from across the UK & Eire evaluated by an expert panel
Kicking off the first day, we were treated to the ‘Five Nations – Regional cases from across the UK & Eire evaluated by an expert panel’ session, which posed interesting cases to an esteemed trio of experts who were set to answer questions, including Aoife Doyle, Professor Cecilia Fenerty, and Winnie Nolan, and what a great line up of cases it was.
Investigations and innovations in clinic
Opening up the second session of the day, Giovanni Montesano started presentations with ‘Visual fields in clinical practice: Now and beyond’, followed directly after by Neeru Vallabh, with ‘Harnessing AS-OCT for enhanced diagnosis & management of glaucoma’. Giovanni took us through the improvements made to visual field testing in modern practice and their application to glaucoma, while also noting both the pros and cons of these improvements. He also spent significant time on the integration of structural data, capitalising on the use of AI predictions, and creating customisable perimetry.
Neeru’s presentation which posed an argument for how anterior segment optical coherence tomography can, as the title suggests, enhance diagnosis and management of glaucoma. Moving through the basics of AS-OCT and the parameters of interest; interpreting images and integrating it into practice; its limitations, such as lighting impact, image artefacts, hardware requirements, etc.; and also its potential future – don’t worry, your gonioscopy is not going anywhere just yet – which is promising (for more information, see GHOST study).
Before the session came to a close, delegates had the opportunity to ask questions, which brought Giovanni back to the stage to create a short panel session between the speakers and chairs, Professor Augusto Azuara-Blanco and Professor David Crabb.
Glaucoma in underserved communities
'Glaucoma in underserved communities' followed and was chaired by Panagiota Founti and James Kirwan and featured stellar discussions from Ian Rodrigues, Mark Doherty, and Keir Yong.
The Hitching's Lecture
Tin Aung from Singapore delivered this year’s Hitchings Lecture, in the name of one of UKEGS’ founders, covering 'Recent advances in our understanding and management of angle closure glaucoma'. Starting his presentation with a little context from home, Tin provided an overview of eyecare in Singapore and the Singapore Eye Research Institute. Tin then moved through typical, current questions leading to the diagnosis of angle closure glaucoma (ACG), and onto many clinical trials for ACG in what was an incredibly medical lecture was (I may, or may not, have felt a little out of place in the room!). He then discussed clear-lens extraction and the success of the EAGLE trial, before moving onto the ZAP trial, and the ANA-LIS trial. After an informative and critical question time with Tin, UKEGS President Nishani Amerasinghe presented Tin with his Hitchings medal.
How do I? Wisdom from the experts
Closing off the sessions were a range of insightful talks from experts in their fields. Expertise was shared by Anthony King, Dan Lindfield, Keith Barton, Leon Au, Jim Kirwan and Winnie Nolan, covering repairing leaking blebs, aqueous misdirection, relocating the tube to protect the cornea, and more. Gus Gazzard stepped in as chair in replacement of Sir Peng Khaw who unfortunately had to leave early, but of course did a stellar job at facilitating Q&As, with a number of thoughtful and forward-thinking questions, alongside the equally brilliant Siene Ng.
For our full daily coverage of UKEGS 2024 Day 1, click here to be taken to our newsletter.
Surgery in Action
Professor Gus Gazzard was first to the podium on Day 2, kicking off the 'Surgery in Action' session, which he described as some form of revenge after the previous night’s GALA Dinner activities, and talked delegates through ‘MIGS in my practice’. This talk moved through the MIGS devices that have been used, abandoned, currently evaluating, and some on the wish list and/or are felt to be needed in Gus’ workplace. Paired nicely was the following talk from Professor Sheng Lim on ‘MIBS in my practice’, followed by Professors Augusto Azuara-Blanco and Luis Abegão Pinto who came to the stage with their talks, ‘Introducing surgical innovations: the good, the bad and the ugly’ and ‘EGS guidelines in surgical innovation’, respectively, to close off the session.
The Great Debate: This house believes MIGS should be implant free
Hosted by Nishani Amerasinghe, this brilliant fixture of the programme held arguments both ‘For’ (Imran Masood) and ‘Against’ (Leon Au) MIGS being implant free, after which the end vote was made by a show of hands from delegates.
Imran initiated the debate by noting that MIGS should be implant free due to the fact that implantation accuracy is challenging; mal-positioning is common; there’s very little standalone, robust data; and there are also long-term adverse effects. Instead, Imran posed an argument for lasers, catheters, gonioscopy assisted transluminal trabeculotomy, and the accessibility and lower cost for third world implementation.
In a compelling contrast, Leon argued against implant free MIGS placing weight on (1) the results for the patient, (2) the proven study data, and, rather comically, because (3) the Chinese people say so. Moving through meta data analysis, quality of life data, and randomised controlled trials, Leon’s argument grew stronger, before stressing that implant-based MIGS are also reimbursed properly.
Finalising the debate, hands went up for both – just about – but with roughly 90% of delegates voting against MIGS being implant free. Well done, Leon!
Patients first
This incredibly human session, led by Eleni Nikita and Humma Shahid, reviewed a number of significant subjects, the first of which was led by our wellbeing guest editor, Christina Rennie, who discussed ‘Vision for safety: Enhancing patient outcomes through human factors in ophthalmology’.
Christina nailed down human factors and systems thinking, and how, rather humanistically, we respond to certain stimuli and experiences. Offering a definition of human factors, Christina’s hospital in Southampton came up with three words: people, process, place, and how these interact with the systems around them to ensure wellbeing for clinicians and, as a result, the patients they serve. Psychological safety featured as a significant subject in the talk and explored how to build a psychologically safe space for both patient and clinician, allowing for better communication, lower errors being made, calmer and more comfortable patient experiences, and higher performance.
Seeing the future?
Day 2's tech-focused afternoon session, led by Professor Anthony Khawaja and Francesco Stringa, was the last session we were able to sit in on before having to catch our train back to Edinburgh. It’s a shame that we had to cut our stay short, but then again we had an eight-hour journey ahead of us. Nevertheless, it was an incredible selection of talks to attend, including Gok Ratnarajan presenting on ‘AI in MIGS decisions’, ‘Getting AI and the clinic ready for each other’ by Peter Thomas, and Sameer Trikha's 'Large language models in ophthalmic care'.
For our full daily coverage of UKEGS 2024 Day 2, click here to be taken to our newsletter.
If you attended UKEGS 2024 in Southampton this year, you can still claim your CPD points from the event. These points have been verified by the Royal College of Ophthalmologists, and each hour of learning should equate to 1 CPD point. To verify your attendance and claim yours, click here.
Are you just nuts about glaucoma? Keen for next year's UKEGS 2025 Annual Conference already? Well, you may have hold your horses for a little longer but fear not, details are starting to slowly emerge. 2025's conference will be brought to Edinburgh - hometown of Eye News - hooray! And it will be taking place between the 5th and 6th of November.
We're super excited to welcome you to one of prettiest cities in the UK and even more so to follow the exciting developments within UKEGS and beyond throughout Andrew Tatham's time as President. For more information about the event, click here for free Professional Membership and stay in the loop of all updates.
