ASCRS 2012: David Richardson | Canaloplasty – A Focus on the Patient

Canaloplasty (pronounced Kah-NAL-oh-plas-tee) is a new glaucoma treatment that gives many people with this potentially blinding condition the hope of saving the vision they have. Canaloplasty can reduce pressure in the eye (IOP) by nearly 40%, and many glaucoma patients who have had Canaloplasty no longer need medications.

If you are not familiar with Canaloplasty, you might want to visit this post first: “What is Canaloplasty?

Dr. David Richardson, Ophthalmologist in Southern California, discusses the lifestyle impact of current glaucoma treatments, specifically eye drops & trabeculectomy, on the patient and how this impact is becoming more pronounced within the baby boomer generation. Dr. Richardson also discusses how the lifestyle impact on patients influenced his decision to adopt Canaloplasty.

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Partial Transcription

You’ve heard a couple of talks now that really focus on, you know, why should we do Canaloplasty, the clinical information, those kind of doctor-centric things, the very important, you know, why should I do this? What’s in it for me? And although there has been quite of an emphasis on why is it good for the patients, I’m going to focus on specifically what’s in it for the patients.

So first of all, a disclosure, I am a consultant to iScience. I’m also gonna state that frankly that I am bias. I am un-apologetically enthusiastic about this procedure. Now that enthusiasm did pre-date my consulting agreement, so my hope is that at the end of this talk, you will understand why bias but not feel that there has been any conflict of interest.

I’m gonna suggest to you that glaucoma is a lifestyle disease. Now some of you in the audience may already see it that way and to you I apologized, and be patient. But for most of us who think about glaucoma, glaucoma is not what we would consider a lifestyle disease. We think of refractive issues as lifestyle but not so much glaucoma. And when we do think about glaucoma as a lifestyle disease, we’re thinking about it in terms of the end stage of glaucoma. The point which there is already a significant visual fear of lost, and of course that’s lifestyle issue. I’m gonna suggest that glaucoma is a lifestyle disease from the very point of diagnosis and the reason for that is because when we first diagnose glaucoma patients, we, as doctors take somebody who is asymptomatic and by the very act of initiating treatment, we give them symptoms. We impact their lifestyle and I’m sorry to say, and I think that most of you, if you are honest, have to agree that the impact is not a positive one on that day.

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