Glaucoma Research and Clinical Advances: 2020 to 2022

Foreword

About the authors

Fundamental science

1. On the prevention and treatment of progressive vision loss in primary open-angle glaucoma.
Paul A. Knepper, Nicholas M. Pfahler, Indre. E. Bielskus, Michael C. Giovingo, Nicholas J. Volpe

2. Biomechanics of the trabecular meshwork: how far have we come?
VijayKrishna Raghunathan, Ted Acott, Janice Vranka

3. Activation of αvβ3 integrins: the next step in TGF-™2 and glucocorticoid-induced glaucoma?
Mark S. Filla, Jennifer A. Faralli, Donna M. Peters

4. No cell is an island: trabecular meshwork ion channels as sensors of the ambient milieu
David Križaj

5. Gene expression sequence alteration and impaired proteolysis: are they contributory in glaucoma?
Beau Freedman, Hayden Sandler, Shawn M. Iverson, Dianne Barrett, Bryan Alfonso, Richard K. Lee, Sanjoy K. Bhattacharya

6. On the role of innate immune Toll-like receptor 4 in primary open-angle glaucoma.
Nicholas M. Pfahler, Indre. E. Bielskus, Michael C. Giovingo, Paul A. Knepper

7. The role of primary cilia in glaucoma pathogenesis.
Philipp P. Prosseda, Carlo Iomini, Yang Sun

8. Trabecular meshwork restoration in primary open-angle glaucoma using stem cells
Lin Cheng, Wei Zhu, Lauren K. Wareham, Emmanuel S. Buys, Markus H. Kuehn

9. Trabecular meshwork regeneration by stem cells for glaucoma treatment: rationale, feasibility, and mechanisms
Ajay Kumar, Kunal Gandhi, Yiqin Du

10. The role of inflammation in primary angle-closure glaucoma.
Monisha E. Nongpiur, Eranga N. Vithana, Tin Aung, Tina Wong

Clinical diagnosis

11. Optical coherence tomography angiography in glaucoma.
David Huang, Liang Liu, Qisheng You

12. What’s new in perimetry?
Chris A. Johnson

13. Glaucoma at the center of the Earth
Jean-Claude Mwanza, Donald L. Budenz

Clinical treatment

14. Rho kinase inhibition: a therapeutic intervention for glaucoma
Padmanabhan Pattabiraman, Avinash Soundararajan

15. Clinical safety and e¡icacy of the first-in-class Rho kinase inhibitor for lowering IOP: netarsudil and the fixed-dose combination of netarsudil and latanoprost
Janet B. Serle, Jake Radell

16. The use of micropulse trans-scleral cyclophototherapy for glaucoma: current and future practice
Victor Koh, Marcus Tan, Maria Cecilia Aquino, Dawn Lim, Paul Chew

17. Micropulse laser trabeculoplasty: a gentler approach to re-establishing conventional outflow.
Michael Giovingo, Giorgio Dorin, Catherine Thomas, Robin Alexander, John R. Samples, Thomas Patrianakos

Trabecular meshwork

18. Trabecular Meshwork Study Club Abstracts 2018201

19. Trabecular Meshwork Study Club Abstracts 2019227

Volume 3 of our serial publication continues to address glaucoma with the same combination of science and speculation that characterized the prior two volumes. This collection of chapters was deliberately eclectic with both theoretical and clinical impact. Each chapter was chosen to help advance glaucoma research and to improve clinical care. All are meant to encourage speculation into the future while remaining scientifically sound.

We remain well served by understanding that glaucoma is a neurodegenerative disease and that optic nerve dysfunction leads to visual loss. The trabecular meshwork remains highly relevant since intraocular pressure remains a major risk factor for the disease. Genetic mutations continue to yield puzzling clues to its still elusive cause(s). Our goal is to understand how the disease develops and progresses, which should pave the way toward our ultimate goal: to prevent the disease. There is no question that glaucoma is multifaceted, with ocular and systemic abnormalities leading to the classic ocular findings. The final pathways are complex and redundant. We look forward to a day when we can use therapies for the optic nerve and the trabecular meshwork which address the underlying cause of elevated pressure. It is our hope that the present volume gives the reader a better understanding of the current disease process and opens new directions for the future discoveries in glaucoma.

These three volumes and the first volume of the MIGS and surgery series through Kugler Publications form the underpinning of an annual meeting run every fall by the same publisher in Amsterdam. Given COVID-19, the 2020 meeting was a virtual meeting; we hope we can look forward to an onsite meeting in Amsterdam again in 2021. If you can’t make it to the meetings, you can always find Simon Bakker, Managing Director of Kugler Publications, at the American Academy of Ophthalmology, the American Glaucoma Society, the European Glaucoma Society, and Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology. As always, we welcome hearing from you. Let us know your outstanding questions.

Paul A. Knepper, MD, PhD, FARVO
Professor of Ophthalmology, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine Research Scientist, University of Illinois at Chicago