ASCRS backs research

[caption id="attachment_8449" align="alignnone" width="750"] Retired astronaut and US Navy Captain Scott Kelly[/caption]   Held in Los Angeles for the first time in 15 years, attendance at this year’s ASCRS•ASOA Symposium & Congress topped 7,000 delegates from more than 100 countries. The meeting included more than 1,500 papers, posters, courses and symposia. Incoming ASCRS President Bonnie An Henderson MD, Boston, USA, praised the society’s founders for their vision and courage in promoting intraocular lens (IOL) implantation, phacoemulsification and other innovations even when they were suspect in the ophthalmology community at large. She pledged to maintain and strengthen the ASCRS’ leading position in ophthalmic education, and promote research to make ophthalmic surgery even safer, including a prospective study of intracameral antibiotics. Retired astronaut and US Navy Captain Scott Kelly was one of the keynote speakers at the meeting. In a wide-ranging speech looking back on his career, he discussed the ophthalmic effects of long-term spaceflight, including increased cerebral fluid pressure, optic nerve swelling and retinal folds. Captain Kelly lived aboard the International Space Station for 340 days in 2015-2016, and has spent a total of more than 520 days in zero gravity. ESCRS Board member Boris Malyugin MD, PhD, best known for the eponymous Malyugin ring iris expander, delivered the prestigious Binkhorst Lecture at the meeting, on the topic of managing small pupils in cataract surgery. The 50th anniversary of phacoemulsification was celebrated with an extended tribute to Charles D Kelman MD. It featured a panel of his colleagues and residents who helped develop this technology into the safe, effective and efficient procedure that revolutionised cataract surgery worldwide. The first Steinert Refractive Lecture, honouring long-time ASCRS programme director, surgeon and researcher Roger F Steinert MD, was delivered by Douglas Koch MD at the inaugural ASCRS Refractive Day. The topic was challenges in IOL calculation in post-op and ectatic corneas. In another presentation, Thomas Kohnen MD, PhD told the meeting that an accelerated corneal crosslinking (CXL) approach appears to be safe for treating patients with progressive keratoconus, and delivers comparable visual and corneal biomechanical results to the standard Dresden Protocol while reducing treatment time.