AA0 2023: Study on internationally collected cohorts and the consistency of outcomes

Clara Chan, MD, FRSCS, FACS, DABO, from the University of Toronto spoke with Ophthalmology Times about their study on the consistency of outcomes across 3 different cohorts of patients that were internationally collected at this year's American Academy of Ophthalmology meeting.

Video Transcript

Editor's note - This transcript has been edited for clarity.

Clara Chan, MD, FRSCS, FACS, DABO:

Hi there, my name is Dr. Clara Chan. I'm from the University of Toronto. It was an honor to have my poster presentation accepted at the American Academy of Ophthalmology meeting. Our topic for the study was looking at the consistency of outcomes across 3 different cohorts of patients that were internationally collected, and looking at the outcomes after cell endothelial therapy for treatment of endothelial disease.

There's over 16 million patients across the world that are impacted by endothelial cell disease. What happens is that the endothelium decompensates, the cornea becomes edematous patients lose vision, and the cornea is very thick. So in this study, we looked at 3 groups of patients from Japan and El Salvador. And the interesting thing was that across the board, there was improvement in functional outcome, where the central corneal thickness improved by at least 25%. And then also, in terms of best-corrected visual acuity in terms of functional outcomes, patients also improved by 3 lines or more of vision, and they improved their functional outcomes, in terms of 3 lines of vision, or more. Over 90% of the patients, across the board, there were 90%, almost 90%, and then 100% in one group, that actually had improved visual outcomes, where we define that as 3 lines of vision or more.

So the exciting thing is that there were different surgeons, different patients with different etiologies for endothelial failure, as well as different geographic regions where the consistency of outcomes was really well established. Even more exciting is that there were really no systemic or ocular adverse events that were reported in the 3 groups. When you compare that to our current standard of care, which is endothelial grafting either via DMEK, or DSEK surgery, those surgeries can be quite complex. Patient recovery can take long sometimes, there's complications associated with it. Patients have to get, you know, rebubbled, or there's problems with graft attachment. And so with all those things, it's nice to really have an option, especially in places where they don't have access to tissue.

In Japan, the regulatory agencies have approved this treatment already now. And patients have been there, treated for decades already. And in the US, the first patients have also undergone treatment under the trial that's been initiated now. And so we really look forward to seeing more outcomes and we'll be able to report more as we gather the data. Thank you.