The 10th Aegean Cornea Meeting took place at the Conference Center of the Terra Maris Hotel on the island of Crete in Hersonissos, from July 9 to 11, 2010.
The members of the Organizing Committee, Perry S. Binder, Marguerite McDonald and Ioannis G. Pallikaris, are considered some of the top experts in the field of cornea, in a meeting that provides a forum for the presentation of recent data and the exchange of new ideas by the most prominent scientists.
This year's meeting had a special significance since it designated the celebration of the 20th anniversary from the first LASIK surgeries by LASIK pioneer Ioannis Pallikaris and especially since ESCRS has announced 2010 as the European Year of LASIK.
Presbyopia Management
Meetings' highlights included exciting new information on the field of Presbyopia management such as the LaserACE Procedure, described by AnnMarie Hipsley, aiming in the restoration of natural dynamic accommodation with extremely promising results and the Flexivue™ Micro-Lens (Presbia, CA) intracorneal implantation with the Femtosecond Laser presented by Dimitrios Bouzoukis, effective for patients in the peripresbyopic age. Professor Ioannis Pallikaris highlighted the differences between two of the most commonly used accommodative IOL's, the WIOL – CF and Crystalens HD. By iTrace technology the different type of accommodative effect was demonstrated, showing a central peak for the WIOL – CF and a more uniform pattern for the Crystalens HD.
Femto Olympics
The Femto Olympics during the MEACO symposium tried to provide an overview of all the Femtosecond Laser systems available in the market and focus on their advantages and disadvantages, with the Intralase winning the race at the end as the audience voting decided.
CXL
The recent results of CXL with the use of riboflavin and ultraviolet – A irradiation were analyzed thoroughly. Marguerite MacDonald provided all the details of the U.S. Corneal Cross linking Clinical Trial for Ectasia and Keratoconus concluding that CXL will eventually become standard of care for the treatment of ectatic corneal diseases. Beatrice Frueh and Adel Barbara focused on the use of CXL in children with progressive keratoconus and it's benefit in the arrest of this ectatic disorder.
Confusion in Paradise
One of the most revealing presentations was Dan Epstein's "Confusion in paradise: When to treat higher-order aberrations" in which he explained why not all refractive cases are suitable for wavefront – guided ablations and why are not generally indicated in every patient presenting for excimer refractive surgery.
Ophthalmological Instruments
An interesting talk on the development of ophthalmological instruments in the last century was given by Professor Huber explaining the needs of the past and moving towards the needs of the future. The audience was also taken a step towards the future by Ramon Naranjo-Tackman's presentation on Femtosecond Laser cataract using the LensAR Laser System. The main advantages are the production of controlled and reproducible capsulotomies and the significant reduction of the amount of ultrasound energy required to remove the lens in cataract surgery.
