Ocular surface temperature:a review

Purpose. To review the evolution in ocular temperature measurement during the last century and examine the advantages and applications of the latest noncontact techniques. The characteristics and source of ocular surface temperature are also discussed. Methods. The literature was reviewed with regard to progress in human thermometry techniques, the parallel development in ocular temperature measurement, the current use of infrared imaging, and the applications of ocular thermography. Results. It is widely acknowledged that the ability to measure ocular temperature accurately will increase the understanding of ocular physiology. There is a characteristic thermal profile across the anterior eye, in which the central area appears coolest. Ocular surface temperature is affected by many factors, including inflammation. In thermometry of the human eye, contact techniques have largely been superseded by infrared imaging, providing a noninvasive and potentially more accurate method of temperature measurement. Ocular thermography requires high resolution and frame rate: features found in the latest generation of cameras. Applications have included dry eye, contact lens wear, corneal sensitivity, and refractive surgery. Conclusions. Interest in the temperature of the eye spans almost 130 years. It has been an area of research largely driven by prevailing technology. Current instrumentation offers the potential to measure ocular surface temperature with more accuracy, resolution, and speed than previously possible. The use of dynamic ocular thermography offers great opportunities for monitoring the temperature of the anterior eye. © 2005 Contact Lens Association of Ophthalmologists, Inc.

Immunoblotting and tear sampling techniques for the study of contact lens-induced variations in tear protein profiles

More information on the biochemical interactions taking place between the tear film and the contact lens is required to further our understanding of the causative mechanisms behind the symptoms of dryness and grittiness often experienced by contact lens wearers. These symptoms can often lead to an intolerance to contact lens wear.

Visual signs and symptoms of multiple system atrophy

Multiple system atrophy (MSA) is a rare movement disorder and a member of the 'parkinsonian syndromes', which also include Parkinson's disease (PD), progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and corticobasal degeneration (CBD). Multiple system atrophy is a complex syndrome, in which patients exhibit a variety of signs and symptoms, including parkinsonism, ataxia and autonomic dysfunction. It can be difficult to separate MSA from the other parkinsonian syndromes but if ocular signs and symptoms are present, they may aid differential diagnosis. Typical ocular features of MSA include blepharospasm, excessive square-wave jerks, mild to moderate hypometria of saccades, impaired vestibular-ocular reflex (VOR), nystagmus and impaired event-related evoked potentials. Less typical features include slowing of saccadic eye movements, the presence of vertical gaze palsy, visual hallucinations and an impaired electroretinogram (ERG). Aspects of primary vision such as visual acuity, colour vision or visual fields are usually unaffected. Management of the disease to deal with problems of walking, movement, daily tasks and speech problems is important in MSA. Optometrists can work in collaboration with the patient and health-care providers to identify and manage the patient's visual deficits. A more specific role for the optometrist is to correct vision to prevent falls and to monitor the anterior eye to prevent dry eye and control blepharospasm.

International session at the BCLA conference

Full text: It seems a long time ago now since we were at the BCLA conference. The excellent FIFA World Cup in Brazil kept us occupied over the summer as well as Formula 1, Wimbledon, Tour de France, Commonwealth Games and of course exam paper marking! The BCLA conference this year was held in Birmingham at the International Convention Centre which again proved to be a great venue. The number of attendees overall was up on previous years, and at a record high of 1500 people. Amongst the highlights at this year's annual conference was the live surgery link where Professor Sunil Shah demonstrated the differences in technique between traditional phacoemulsification cataract surgery and femtosecond assisted phacoemulsification cataract surgery. Dr. Raquel Gil Cazorla, a research optometrist at Aston University, assisted in the procedure including calibrating the femtosecond laser. Another highlight for me was the session that I chaired, which was the international session organised by IACLE (International Association of CL Educators). There was a talk by Mirjam van Tilborg about dry eye prevalence in the Netherlands and how it was managed by medical general practitioners (GPs) or optometrists. It was interesting to know that there are only 2 schools of optometry there and currently under 1000 registered optometrists there. It also seems that GPs were more likely to blame CL as the cause for dry eye whereas optometrists who had a fuller range of tests were better at solving the issue. The next part of the session included the presentation of 5 selected posters from around the world. The posters were also displayed in the main poster area but were selected to be presented here as they had international relevance. The posters were: 1. Motivators and Barriers for Contact Lens Recommendation and Wear by Nilesh Thite (India) 2. Contact lens hygiene among Saudi wearers by Dr. Ali Masmaly (Saudi) 3. Trends of contact lens prescribing and patterns of contact lens practice in Jordan by Dr. Mera Haddad (Jordan) 4. Contact Lens Behaviour in Greece by Dr. Dimitra Makrynioti (Greece) 5. How practitioners inform ametropes about the benefits of contact lenses and overcome the potential barriers: an Italian survey, by Dr. Fabrizio Zeri (Italy) It was interesting to learn about CL practice in different parts, for example the CL wearing population ration in Saudi Arabia is around 1:2 Male:Female (similar to other parts of the world) and although the sale of CL is restricted to registered practitioners there are many unregistered outlets, like clothing stores, that flout the rules. In Jordan some older practitioners will still advise patients to use tap water or even saliva! But thankfully the newer generation of practitioners have been educated not to advise this. In Greece one of the concerns was that some practitioners may advise patients to use disposable lenses for longer than they should and again it seems to be the practitioners with inadequate education that would do this. In India it was found that cost was one barrier to using contact lenses but also some practitioners felt that they shouldn’t offer CLs due to cost too. In Italy sensitive eyes and CL care and maintenance were the barriers to CL wear but the motivators were vision and comfort and aesthetics. Finally the international session ended with the IACLE travel award and educator awards presented by IACLE president Shehzad Naroo and BCLA President Andrew Yorke. The travel award went to Wang Ling, Jinling Institute of Technology, Nanjing, China. There were 3 regional Contact Lens Educator of the Year Awards sponsored by Coopervision and presented by Dr. J.C. Aragorn of Coopervision. 1. Asia Pacific Region – Dr. Rajeswari Mahadevan of Sankara Nethralaya Medical Research Foundation, Chennai, India 2. Americas Region – Dr. Sergio Garcia of University of La Salle, Bogotá and the University Santo Tomás, Bucaramanga, Colombia 3. Europe/Africa – Middle East Region: Dr. Eef van der Worp, affiliated with the University of Maastricht, the Netherlands The posters above were just a small selection of those displayed at this year's BCLA conference. If you missed the BCLA conference then you can see the abstracts for all posters and talks in a virtual issue of CLAE very soon. The poster competition was kindly sponsored by Elsevier. The poster winner this year was: Joan Gispets – Corneal and Anterior Chamber Parameters in Keratoconus The 3 runners up were: Debby Yeung – Scleral Lens Central Corneal Clearance Assessment with Biomicroscopy Sarah L. Smith – Subjective Grading of Lid Margin Staining Heiko Pult – Impact of Soft Contact Lenses on Lid Parallel Conjunctival Folds My final two highlights are a little more personal. Firstly, I was awarded Honorary Life Fellowship of the BCLA for my work with the Journal, and I would like to thank the BCLA, Elsevier, the editorial board of CLAE, the reviewers and the authors for their support of my role. My final highlight from the BCLA conference this year was the final presentation of the conference – the BCLA Gold Medal award. The recipient this year was Professor Philip Morgan with his talk ‘Changing the world with contact lenses’. Phil was the person who advised me to go to my first BCLA conference in 1994 (funnily he didn’t attend himself as he was busy getting married!) and now 20 years later he was being honoured with the accolade of being the BCLA Gold Medallist. The date of his BCLA medal addressed was shared with his father's birthday so a double celebration for Phil. Well done to outgoing BCLA President Andy Yorke and his team at the BCLA (including Nick Rumney, Cheryl Donnelly, Sarah Greenwood and Amir Khan) on an excellent conference. And finally welcome to new President Susan Bowers. Copyright © 2014 British Contact Lens Association. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Estudo do domínio segurança/proteção da NANDA internacional em pacientes de unidade de terapia intensiva

The study aimed to analyze the field of nursing diagnoses safety / protection of NANDA International present in patients in the Intensive Care Unit. This is a crosssectional study in intensive care complex of a university hospital in northeastern Brazil. The research took place in two stages. The first step was to collect data through an interview form and physical examination, with 86 patients admitted to the unit, during the months of December 2013 to May 2014. Spreadsheets were built in Microsoft Office Excel 2010 Software in which were marked by the researcher of this study, the presence or absence of defining characteristics, related factors and risk factors of the 31 studied diagnoses. In the second stage, held between July and August 2014, the sheets were sent to three diagnosticians, previously trained to perform the diagnostic inference. Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics for the diagnoses that showed higher frequencies than 50%, using IBM SPSS version 20.0 for Statistic Windows.O project was approved by the 440/414 and Presentation Certificate for Ethics Assessment number 22955113 .2.0000.5292. The results indicated the presence of 29 field of nursing diagnoses safety / protection in hospital clientele in the Intensive Care Unit, of which five were present in 100% of patients, namely: Risk of contamination, injury risk, falls risk,risk of allergic response and risk of trauma. Diagnoses that presented more frequently than 50% were: Risk of infection, dry eye risk, poisoning risk, vascular trauma risk, impaired skin integrity, impaired dentition, bleeding risk, risk imbalance in body temperature, Risk perioperative positioning injury, impaired tissue integrity, peripheral neurovascular dysfunction Risk, Risk adverse response to contrast media with iodine, shock Hazard and Risk of aspiration. For these analyzes, we identified 35 risk factors, 11 defining characteristics and three related factors showed statistically significant association with the studied diagnoses. For diagnostics: Risk of contamination, injury risk, falls risk, allergic response risk, trauma Risk, Risk of infection, dry eye risk and risk poisoning there was no association with any of their risk factors. We conclude that most of the area of nursing diagnoses safety / protection feature is prevalent in critically ill patients, with special attention to the risk diagnoses. There was a significant association between these diagnoses and its components. It is noteworthy, therefore, that the lifting of this profile contributes relevant clues to the inference of the priority nursing diagnoses domain safety / protection in the study population, supporting the practice of nursing and stimulating knowledge on the subject.

Gravidade do olho seco em pacientes internados em unidade de terapia intensiva: análise de conceito e construção de definições

Dry eye syndrome is a multifactorial disease of the tear film, resulting from the instability of the lacrimal functional unit that produces volume change, up or tear distribution. In patients in intensive care the cause is enhanced due to various risk factors, such as mechanical ventilation, sedation, lagophthalmos, low temperatures, among others. The study's purpose is to build an assessment tool of Dry Eye Severity in patients in intensive care units based on the systematization of nursing care and their classification systems. The aim of this study is to build an assessment tool of Dry Eye Severity in hospitalized patients in Care Unit Intensiva.Trata is a methodological study conducted in three stages, namely: context analysis, concept analysis, construction of operational definitions and magnitudes of nursing outcome. For the first step we used the methodological framework for Hinds, Chaves and Cypress (1992). For the second step we used the model of Walker and Avant and an integrative review Whitemore seconds, Knalf (2005). This step enabled the identification of the concept of attributes, background and consequent ground and the construction of the settings for the result of nursing severity of dry eye. For the construction of settings and operational magnitudes, it was used Psicometria proposed by Pasquali (1999). As a result of context analysis, visualized from the reflection that the matter should be discussed and that nursing needs to pay attention to the problem of eye injury, so minimizing strategies are created this event with a high prevalence. With the integrative review were located from the crosses 19 853 titles, selected 215, and from the abstracts 96 articles were read in full. From reading 10 were excluded culminating in the sample of 86 articles that were used to analyze the concept and construction of settings. Selected articles were found in greater numbers in the Scopus database (55.82%), performed in the United States (39.53%), and published mainly in the last five years (48.82). Regarding the concept of analysis were identified as antecedents: age, lagophthalmos, environmental factors, medication use, systemic diseases, mechanical ventilation and ophthalmic surgery. As attributes: TBUT <10s, Schimer I test <5 mm in Schimer II test <10mm, reduced osmolarity. As consequential: the ocular surface damage, ocular discomfort, visual instability. The settings were built and added indicators such as: decreased blink mechanism and eyestrain.

Diadenosine polyphosphates in the tears of aniridia patients

Purpose To quantify diadenosine polyphosphate levels in tears of congenital aniridia patients to estimate the ocular surface changes associated with congenital aniridia compared to normal individuals. Methods Fifteen patients diagnosed with congenital aniridia and a control group of forty volunteers were studied. Tears were collected to quantify the levels of diadenosine polyphosphates Ap4A and Ap5A by high-performance liquid chromatography (H.P.L.C). Break-up time (BUT), corneal staining, McMonnies questionnaire and the Schirmer I test were applied to both groups. Results Dinucleotides in congenital aniridia patients were higher than in control subjects. For the congenital aniridia group, under 15 years old, the values were 0.77 ± 0.01 μm and 0.17 ± 0.02 μm for Ap4A and Ap5A, respectively. The group aged from 15 to 40 years old provided concentrations of 4.37 ± 0.97 μm and 0.46 ± 0.05 μm for Ap4A and Ap5A, the group over 40 gave concentrations of 11.17 ± 5.53 μm and 0.68 ± 0.17 μm for Ap4A and Ap5A. Dinucleotide concentrations increased with age, being statistically significant different among the three age groups (p < 0.05). Congenital aniridia patients showed a normal tear secretion and no dry eye McMonnies scores, except for the group over 40 years old. BUT values decreased and corneal staining increased with age and correlated with the levels of diadenosine polyphosphates (p < 0.05). Conclusions The levels of dinucleotides in tears increase in aniridia patients compared with healthy subjects, and they seem to be related with the progression of corneal disorders in aniridia patients, both of which increase with ageing.

Diadenosine polyphosphates after laser in situ keratomileusis and photorefractive keratectomy refractive techniques

Purpose:  To study the concentrations of diadenosine polyphosphates in the ocular surface after PRK and LASIK. Methods:  Sixty-one patients (30 males and 31 females) with ages ranging from 20 to 63 (34.04 ± 9.13 years) were recruited in Balear Institute of Ophthalmology, Palma de Mallorca, Spain. LASIK was performed in 92 eyes of 46 patients and PRK in 25 eyes of 15 patients. Variations in the levels of diadenosine polyphosphate (Ap4A and Ap5A), Schirmer I (Jones test), TBUT, corneal staining together with the Dry Eye Questionnaire to evaluate discomfort and dryness were studied. All tests were performed at the preoperative visit and at 1-day, 2-week, 1-month and 3-month postoperative visits. Results:  Ap4A showed a 5 and 3.5 fold increase at the 1-day visit for LASIK and PRK, respectively. LASIK patients continued having higher statistically significant concentrations (p = 0.01) all over the follow-up. Ap5A showed no significant differences at any visit. Tear volume decreased during the 3 months in LASIK. The PRK cases had a normal volume at 1 month. TBUT in LASIK increased at the 1-day visit (p = 0,002) and decreased from the 2 weeks onwards and for the PRK, decreased by a 35% at the 1-day visit and kept reduced for a month. Discomfort only increased at the 1-day visit (p = 0.007). Dryness frequency was similar in all visits. Conclusions:  Ap4A levels only are increased in refractive surgery patients during the first day after the surgery. This increasing suggests that Ap4A may help accelerating the healing process.

Effect of overnight orthokeratology on conjunctival goblet cells

Objective: To evaluate the differences between goblet cell density (GCD) and symptomatology after one month of orthokeratology lens wear. Methods: A pilot, short-term study was conducted. Twenty-two subjects (29.7. ±. 7.0 years old) participated voluntarily in the study. Subjects were divided into two groups: habitual silicone hydrogel contact lens wearers (SiHCLW) and new contact lens wearers (NCLW). Schirmer test, tear break up time (TBUT), Ocular Surface Disease Index (OSDI) questionnaire and conjunctival impression cytology. GCD, mucin cloud height (MCH) and cell layer thickness (CLT) were measured. All measurements were performed before orthokeratology fitting and one month after fitting to assess the evolution of the changes throughout this time. Results: No differences in tear volume and TBUT between groups were found (p>0.05). However, the OSDI score was statistically better after one month of orthokeratology lens wear than the baseline for the SiHCLW group (p=0.03). Regarding the goblet cell analysis, no differences were found in CLT and MCH from the baseline visit to the one month visit for the SiHCLW compared with NCLW groups (p>0.05). At baseline, the GCD in the SiHCLW group were statistically lower than NCLW group (p<0.001). There was a significant increase in GCD after orthokeratology fitting from 121±140cell/mm2 to 254±130cell/mm2 (p<0.001) in the SiHCLW group. Conclusion: Orthokeratology improves the dry eye subject symptoms and GCD after one month of wearing in SiHCLW. These results suggest that orthokeratology could be considered a good alternative for silicone hydrogel contact lens discomfort and dryness. © 2016 British Contact Lens Association.

Diadenosine Polyphosphates in Tears of Sjögren Syndrome Patients

Purpose.: To analyze the levels of diadenosine tetraphosphate (Ap4A) and diadenosine pentaphosphate (Ap5A) in tears of subjects with Sjögren syndrome and to compare them with those in a control group. Methods.: Twelve subjects with a diagnosis of Sjögren syndrome and 20 healthy control subjects were invited to participate in the present study. Schirmer strips were used to measure tear secretion (Schirmer I test) and to collect tears. Ap4A and Ap5A were measured by high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC), and a dry eye questionnaire (DEQ) was used to evaluate dry eye symptomatology. Results.: The mean concentrations of Ap4A and Ap5A in the Sjögren syndrome group were 2.54 ± 1.02 and 26.13 ± 6.95 μM, respectively. This group of patients was divided in two subgroups: four patients with normal tear production and eight patients with low tear production. Concentrations of Ap4A, and Ap5A in patients with normal tear production (Schirmer test result, 12.3 ± 1.2 mm) were 0.47 ± 0.20 and 8.03 ± 3.27 μM, respectively. In the patients with low tear production (Schirmer test result, 1.0 ± 0.3 mm), the concentrations were 4.09 ± 1.36 and 39.51 ± 8.46 μM, respectively and in the control group, 0.13 ± 0.03 and 0.04 ± 0.02 μM, respectively. Conclusions.: Patients with Sjögren syndrome have abnormally elevated concentrations of diadenosine polyphosphates, indicating that these compounds could be used in the diagnosis of this disease.

International flavours

It is an Olympic year and we have just witnessed the fantastic games hosted by Rio de Janeiro. Well done to team USA for winning the most medals overall but also well done to so many other nations and individuals who performed so well or were ambassadors in other ways. Teenage swimmer Yusra Mardini who swam for the refugee team and South Africa's Wayde van Niekerk who broke the longstanding 400 m record of Michael Johnson that has stood since 1999. Of course, we must mention sprinter Usain Bolt and swimmer Michael Phelps, who have now transcended superstar status and entered a new level of icon. My personal highlight was the sportsmanship witnessed in the 5000 m when American Abbey D’Agostino was accidentally felled by New Zealand runner Nikki Hamblin. D’Agostino helped Hamblin back to her feet but slumped to the track after realising her own injury. Hamblin helped her up and stayed with her so that both completed the race. The International Olympic Committee has awarded both with the prestigious Pierre de Coubertin award, also known as the International Fair Play Trophy. Fair play is of paramount importance in publishing in peer-reviewed papers. At CLAE we try and maintain, as do other journals, this by ensuring double blind peer review and allowing authors to select the most appropriate handling editor for their submission. Our handling editors are placed across the world (2 in Europe, 1 in the Americas, 1 in Australia and 1 in Asia) and part of their role is to encourage submissions from their region. Over the last decade we certainly have seen more and more papers from places that haven’t previously published in CLAE. In this issue of CLAE we have a true international blend of papers. We have papers from authors from the UK, USA, Iran, Jordan, France, Poland, Turkey, Nigeria, France, Spain and Brazil. I think it's a testament to the continued success of the journal that we are attracting new writers from so many parts of the world and retain papers from more established authors and research centres. We do continue to attract many weaker papers that are rejected early in the review process. Often these will be unexceptional case reports or papers describing a surgical technique. Case reports are published but only those that offer something original and especially those with interesting photographs. In this issue you will see Professor James Wolffsohn (UK) has an interesting paper around a lot of the focus of his recent research activity into clinical evaluation of methods of correcting presbyopia. In this paper he highlights predictors to aid success of presbyopic contact lenses. If you have been involved in any clinical work or research in the field of dry eye disease then you will know well the CLDEQ (Contact Lens Dry Eye Questionnaire) devised by Robin Chalmers and her colleagues (USA). This issue of CLAE details the latest research using the CLDEQ-8 (the 8 item version of the CLDEQ). The Shahroud Eye Cohort Study has produced many papers already and in this issue we see Fotouhi Akbar (Iran) looking at changes in central and peripheral corneal thickness over a five year period. These days we use a lot of new instrumentation, such as optical low-coherence reflectometry. In this issue Emre Güler (Turkey) compares that to a new optical biometry unit. Dry eye is more common and in this issue we see a study by Oluyemi Fasina (Nigeria) to investigate the disease in adults in South-West Nigeria. The TearLab™ is now commonly used to investigate osmolarity and Dorota Szczesna-Iskander (Poland) looks at measurement variability of this device. Following the theme of dry eyes and tear testing Renaud Laballe (France) looks at the use of scleral lenses as a reservoir-based ocular therapeutic system. In this issue we have a couple of papers looking at different aspects of keratoconus. Magdalena Popiela (UK) looks at demographics of older keratoconic patients in Wales, Faik Orucoglu (Turkey) reports a novel scoring system for distinguishing keratoconus from normal eyes, Gonzalo Carracedo (Spain) reports the effect of rigid gas permeable lens wear on dry eye in keratoconus and Hatice Nur Colak (Turkey) compares topographic and aberrations in keratoconus. Other interesting papers you will find are Mera Haddad (Jordan) investigates contact lens prescribing in Jordan, Camilla Fraga Amaral (Brazil) offers a report on the use of ocular prosthetics, Naveed Ahmed Khan (Malaysia) reports of the use of dimethyl sulfoxide in contact lens disinfectant and Michael Killpartrick (UK) offers a short piece with some useful advice on contamination risk factors that may occur from the posterior surface of disposable lenses. So for this issue I would say that the Gold Medal for biggest contribution in terms of papers has to go to Turkey. I could have awarded it to the UK too, but Turkey has three full papers and the UK has two plus one short communication. Turkey is also one of the countries that has shown the largest increase in submissions over the last decade. Finally, welcome aboard to our newest Editorial Board Member Nicole Carnt from Australia. Nicole has been an active researcher for many years and acted as a reviewer for CLAE many times in the past. We look forward to working with you.

Caracterización y prevalencia del compromiso ocular en pacientes con enfermedad autoinmune y autoinflamatoria en un centro de referencia reumatológica en Colombia entre los años 2000 a 2015

RESUMEN Objetivo: Estimar la prevalencia de las diferentes enfermedades oftalmológicas que aparecen en el contexto de una enfermedad autoinmune (EAI) en pacientes de un centro de referencia reumatológica en Colombia, según características clínicas y sociodemográficas durante un período de 15 años, comprendido entre los años 2000 a 2015. Métodos: Se realizó un estudio descriptivo, observacional de prevalencia. El tipo de muestreo fue aleatorio estratificado con asignación proporcional en el programa Epidat 3.4. Los datos se analizaron en el programa SPSS v22.0 y se realizó análisis univariado de las variables categóricas, para las variables cuantitativas se realizaron medidas de tendencia central. Resultados: De 1640 historias clínicas revisadas, se encontraron 634 pacientes (38,65%) con compromiso ocular. Si excluimos los pacientes con SS, que por definición presentan ojo seco, 222 pacientes (13,53%) presentaron compromiso oftalmológico. Del total de pacientes, el 83,3% fueron mujeres. La AR fue la enfermedad autoinmune con mayor compromiso oftalmológico con 138 pacientes (62,2%), y en último lugar la sarcoidosis con 1 solo paciente afectado. La QCS fue la manifestación más común en todos los grupos diagnósticos de EAI, con 146 pacientes (63,5%). De 414 pacientes con Síndrome de Sjögren (SS) y QCS 8 presentaron compromiso ocular adicional, siendo la uveítis la segunda patología ocular asociada en pacientes con SS y la primera causa en las espondiloartropatias (71,4 %). Los pacientes con catarata (4,1%) presentaron la mayor prevalencia de uso de corticoide (88.8%). De 222 pacientes, 28 (12,6%) presentaron uveítis. Del total de pacientes, 16 (7,2%) presentaron maculopatía por antimalaráricos y 6 (18,75%) de los pacientes con LES. Los ANAS se presentaron en el 100% los pacientes con trastorno vascular de la retina. Los pacientes con epiescleritis presentaron la mayor proporción de positivización de anticuerpos anti-DNA. La EAI que más presentó epiescleritis fue LES con 4 pacientes (12,5%) El 22% de paciente con anticuerpos anti-RNP presentaron escleritis y 32,1% de los pacientes con uveítis presentaron HLA-B27 positivo. Las manifestaciones oftalmológicas precedieron a las sistémicas entre un 11,1% y un 33,3% de los pacientes. Conclusión: Las enfermedades oculares se presentan con frecuencia en los pacientes colombianos con EAI (38.65%), siendo la AR la enfermedad con mayor compromiso ocular (62,2%) y la QCS la enfermedad ocular con mayor prevalencia en todas las EAI (63,5%). La uveítis se presentó en 28 pacientes (12,6%). Las manifestaciones oftalmológicas pueden preceder a las sistémicas. El examen oftalmológico debe ser incluido en los pacientes con EAI, por ser la enfermedad ocular una comorbilidad frecuente. Adicionalmente, los efectos oftalmológicos de las medicaciones sistémicas utilizadas en EAI deben ser estrechamente monitorizados, durante el curso del tratamiento.

Beef carcasses with larger eye muscle areas, lower ossification scores and improved nutrition have a lower incidence of dark cutting

This study evaluated the effect of eye muscle area (EMA), ossification, carcass weight, marbling and rib fat depth on the incidence of dark cutting (pH u > 5.7) using routinely collected Meat Standards Australia (MSA) data. Data was obtained from 204,072 carcasses at a Western Australian processor between 2002 and 2008. Binomial data of pH u compliance was analysed using a logit model in a Bayesian framework. Increasing eye muscle area from 40 to 80 cm 2, increased pH u compliance by around 14% (P < 0.001) in carcasses less than 350 kg. As carcass weight increased from 150 kg to 220 kg, compliance increased by 13% (P < 0.001) and younger cattle with lower ossification were also 7% more compliant (P < 0.001). As rib fat depth increased from 0 to 20 mm, pH u compliance increased by around 10% (P < 0.001) yet marbling had no effect on dark cutting. Increasing musculature and growth combined with good nutrition will minimise dark cutting beef in Australia.

Determination of lead in eye shadow and blush by high-resolution continuum source graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry employing directSolid sampling

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

New approaches and potential treatments for dry age-related macular degeneration

Emerging treatments for dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and geographi c atrophy focus on two strategies that target components involved in physiopathological pathways: prevention of photoreceptors and retinal pigment epithelium loss (neuroprotection induction, oxidative damage prevention, and visual cycle modification) and suppression of inflammation. Neuroprotective drugs, such as ciliary neurotrophic factor, brimonidine tartrate, tandospirone, and anti-amyloid β antibodies, aim to prevent apoptosis of retinal cells. Oxidative stress and depletion of essential micronutrients are targeted by the Age-Related Eye Disease Study (AREDS) formulation. Visual cycle modulators reduce the activity of the photoreceptors and retinal accumulation of toxic fluorophores and lipofuscin. Eyes with dry age-related macular degeneration present chronic inflammation and potential treatments include corticosteroid and complement inhibition. We review the current concepts and rationale of dry age-related macular degeneration treatment that will most likely include a combination of drugs targeting different pathways involved in the development and progression of age-related macular degeneration.