recent research topics in ophthalmology

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Explore the latest in ophthalmology, including recent advances in diagnosis and management of glaucoma, lens and retinal disorders, and more.

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Article type.

This post hoc analysis of a randomized clinical trial evaluates the responsiveness of open-angle glaucoma and ocular hypertension to selective laser trabeculoplasty.

This cross-sectional study examines the use of free eye care services for screening to identify eye disease.

• Bringing Eye Care to the People JAMA Ophthalmology Opinion August 22, 2024 Full Text | pdf link PDF
• Repeat Selective Laser Trabeculoplasty and Open-Angle Glaucoma JAMA Ophthalmology Opinion August 22, 2024 Glaucoma Full Text | pdf link PDF

A man in his early 50s was admitted to the hospital after acute hypoxemic respiratory failure and cardiac arrest following aspiration, requiring 3 minutes of cardiopulmonary resuscitation. One day after extubation, he noticed blurry vision peripherally and difficulty focusing at near. What would you do next?

This cross-sectional study evaluates ultra-widefield vs Early Treatment Diabetic Retinopathy Study 7-field imaging for the capture of diabetic retinopathy.

• Molecular Sequencing and Biomarkers in Acute Infectious Conjunctivitis JAMA Ophthalmology Opinion August 15, 2024 External Eye Disease Full Text | pdf link PDF
• Moving Forward to a Wider Retinal Field of View JAMA Ophthalmology Opinion August 15, 2024 Diabetic Retinopathy Diabetes Diabetes and Endocrinology Retinal Disorders Full Text | pdf link PDF
• Genetic Testing for Rare Retinal Diseases in Telomere Biology Disorders JAMA Ophthalmology Opinion August 15, 2024 Genetics and Genomics Retinal Disorders Full Text | pdf link PDF

This case series of 11 patients with CTNNB1 syndrome reports the presence of familial exudative vitreoretinonpathy detected via fluorescein angiography under anesthesia, which was previously undetected on ophthalmoscopic examination.

This case report describes a diagnosis of streaky multifocal choroiditis in a boy who presented with distorted vision in his left eye for 3 years.

This cross-sectional study evaluates potential biomarkers in patients with acute infectious conjunctivitis.

This cohort study uses smartwatch data to determine whether outdoor exposure patterns are associated with myopic shift in children in Shanghai, China.

This retrospective encounter-based analysis evaluates the impact of step therapy on macular degeneration drug prescribing patterns among 3 large Medicare Advantage insurers.

This cohort study investigates the association between neighborhood-level social determinants of health and severity of rhegmatogenous retinal detachments at presentation.

This randomized clinical trial examined rates of recruitment and efficacy outcomes of vitrectomy plus internal limiting membrane peeling adjunctive to a treat-and-extend anti–vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) injection regimen for diabetic macular edema.

• Implications of Neighborhood- and Patient-Level Factors for Eye Care JAMA Ophthalmology Opinion August 8, 2024 Full Text | pdf link PDF

This cross-sectional study assesses whether a newly developed artificial intelligence (AI) model can accurately identify myopia, strabismus, and ptosis in children using mobile photographs.

This Special Communication proposes expanding clinical research to include rigorous evaluation of multiple data sources and types and to enable reuse of health data for many purposes to produce evidence about medical interventions.

This cohort study examines 20 years of data to determine how rates of endophthalmitis after intraocular procedures have changed over time and how the treatment of those patients has changed.

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September 2024 - Volume 35 - Issue 5

• Editor-in-Chief: Allen C Ho, MD
• ISSN: 1040-8738
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Edited by jay sridhar and avni finn, challenges and controversies in ophthalmology in 2024.

Current Opinion in Ophthalmology. 35(5):351-352, September 2024.

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• CHALLENGES AND CONTROVERSIES IN OPHTHALMOLOGY 2024: Edited by Jay Sridhar and Avni Finn

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Hotspots and trends in ophthalmology in recent 5 years: Bibliometric analysis in 2017–2021

1 State Key Laboratory of Ophthalmology, Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China

2 Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Ophthalmology and Visual Science, Guangzhou, China

3 Guangdong Provincial Clinical Research Center for Ocular Diseases, Guangzhou, China

Weining Zhu

4 Zhongshan Medical School, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China

Yingshi Zou

Bowen zhang, guangming jin, zhenzhen liu, associated data.

Publicly available datasets were analyzed in this study. This data can be found here: https://www.webofscience.com/wos/alldb/basic-search .

The purpose of this study was to investigate the hotspots and research trends of ophthalmology research.

Ophthalmology research literature published between 2017 and 2021 was obtained in the Web of Science Core Collection database. The bibliometric analysis and network visualization were performed with the VOSviewer and CiteSpace. Publication-related information, including publication volume, citation counts, countries, journals, keywords, subject categories, and publication time, was analyzed.

A total of 10,469 included ophthalmology publications had been cited a total of 7,995 times during the past 5 years. The top countries and journals for the number of publications were the United States and the Ophthalmology. The top 25 global high-impact documents had been identified using the citation ranking. Keyword co-occurrence analysis showed that the hotspots in ophthalmology research were epidemiological characteristics and treatment modalities of ocular diseases, artificial intelligence and fundus imaging technology, COVID-19-related telemedicine, and screening and prevention of ocular diseases. Keyword burst analysis revealed that “neural network,” “pharmacokinetics,” “geographic atrophy,” “implementation,” “variability,” “adverse events,” “automated detection,” and “retinal images” were the research trends of research in the field of ophthalmology through 2021. The analysis of the subject categories demonstrated the close cooperation relationships that existed between different subject categories, and collaborations with non-ophthalmology-related subject categories were increasing over time in the field of ophthalmology research.

Conclusions

The hotspots in ophthalmology research were epidemiology, prevention, screening, and treatment of ocular diseases, as well as artificial intelligence and fundus imaging technology and telemedicine. Research trends in ophthalmology research were artificial intelligence, drug development, and fundus diseases. Knowledge from non-ophthalmology fields is likely to be more involved in ophthalmology research.

Introduction

More than 2.2 billion people worldwide were visually impaired or blind to date, with an annual economic burden of more than $269.4 billion ( 1 ). Development in ophthalmology is essential for the prevention and treatment of eye diseases, and relevant research is growing rapidly in breadth and depth and forming complex knowledge networks. Glaucoma, age-related macular degeneration, and some hereditary eye diseases were previously considered irreversible blindness-causing diseases, and progress had been made to cure or alleviate them by modulating new targets or using new technologies ( 2 – 4 ). Cataracts and posterior capsular opacification were previously thought to be treated only with surgery, but in the recent years, there had been new developments in research into drugs that inhibit cataract formation ( 5 , 6 ). With the advances in the field of ophthalmology, new hope has emerged in areas previously considered untreatable or treatable only through non-pharmaceutical interventions ( 7 – 10 ). However, it is not feasible to analyze the overall overview of the field of ophthalmology and to explore its research hotspots and trends with a traditional systematic review, which is not conducive to the development of the field.

Bibliometric analysis is the quantitative analysis of the universal scientific production data in a specific field ( 11 ). Bibliometric method obtains the history and current status of the research field development by analyzing the scientific research results and can make predictions of the research field ( 12 ). Previous studies have conducted bibliometric analysis on individual country contributions or focused only on randomized controlled studies in ophthalmology and citation patterns in ophthalmology journals ( 13 – 19 ). Unsolved questions still remain as to how to quantitatively evaluate the contribution of different global research forces (countries, journals) in ophthalmology and identify hotspots and future research trends in ophthalmology based on a wide range of research results in different subfields of ophthalmology.

This study was intended to quantitatively analyze and visualize the global ophthalmology publication from 2017 to 2021 using bibliometric methods to explore the global research forces (countries, journals), possible hotspots, and future trends of ophthalmology research and to provide insight for research development and public health policy formulation in the field of ophthalmology.

Data sources

All the data used in this study were obtained from the Web of Science Core Collection (Clarivate Analytics, Philadelphia, PA, USA). The search was conducted by searching the Topic Subject retrieval field using “ophthalmology” as the subject word. Articles published between 2017 and 2021 were included, with no restrictions on the language type or document type of the articles. Data were collected on 28 January 2022.

Data collection and processing

To describe the number of articles published per year, the number of annual citations of the articles, the number of country publications, and the number of journal publications in the field of ophthalmology, relevant data were downloaded in the Web of Science Core Collection. All ophthalmology-related articles with their corresponding references and all publication-related information were exported as plain text for country collaboration analysis, keyword co-occurrence analysis, keyword burst analysis, and subject category co-occurrence analysis. To make the results more informative, keywords that were not relevant or meaningful to the analysis were filtered and removed during the data processing.

Statistical and bibliometric analysis

Statistical descriptions of the number of annual publications, the number of annual citations, the number of country publications, and the number of journal publications were performed using Microsoft Excel 2019 (Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA, USA) and GraphPad Prism version 8.4.2 (GraphPad Software, La Jolla, CA, USA).

Bibliometric analysis was carried out using VOSviewer (Leiden University's Centre for Science and Technology Studies, Leiden, the Netherlands) to obtain country collaborations and research hotspots. Several clusters were formed based on the country cooperation analysis, with countries of the same color belonging to the same cluster. Countries within clusters cooperated relatively closely, whereas cooperation among countries between clusters was relatively weak. The research hotspots were obtained from the clusters formed by the co-occurrence analysis of high-frequency keywords. The common characteristics of high-frequency keywords within the same cluster revealed the research hotspots. The frequency of keyword occurrences was used to weight the size of the keywords. The larger the keyword, the higher the frequency of occurrence.

Furthermore, CiteSpace V version 5.8.R3 (Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, USA) was used for bibliometric analysis to obtain the burst keywords and subject category cooperation. The keyword burst analysis was performed to obtain temporal trends in keywords in the field of ophthalmology. The most recent burst keywords were defined as research frontier topics, indicating the potential for continued research breakthroughs in these topics. The co-occurrence of subject categories was analyzed to obtain the collaboration of subject categories. The number of occurrences of a subject category was used to weight the subject category. The more occurrences a subject category had, the larger it was. Temporal trends in subject category occurrences were represented by temporal rings of subject categories, the thickness of which represented the number of subject category occurrences in the corresponding year. Interdisciplinary cooperation was represented by the connecting line between subject categories. The thicker the connecting line, the closer the collaboration.

Global research output distribution

A total of 139 countries contributed to the publications related to ophthalmology research, with a total of 10,469 articles, which were cited 7,995 times. The number of publications had increased year by year, but there was an inflection point in citation counts. Citation counts increased year by year from 2017, reaching 2,650 citations in 2020, whereas citations in 2021 decreased compared to 2020 ( Figure 1A ). The analysis of countries showed that the United States had the highest number of publications, more than three to four times the number of other countries, followed by the United Kingdom, India, Germany, and China ( Figure 1B ). Country collaboration analysis yielded four clusters, with close cooperation between countries within each cluster ( Figure 1C ). Publications related to ophthalmology research were distributed in 1,876 journals, and the top 10 journals in terms of the number of articles published were the Ophthalmology ( n = 1,263, 12.06%), the Ophthalmology. Retina ( n = 580, 5.54%), the BMJ Case Reports ( n = 270, 2.58%), the Journal of Neuro-Ophthalmology: the official journal of the North American Neuro-Ophthalmology Society ( n = 260, 2.48%), the Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science ( n = 214, 2.04%), the Ophthalmology, Glaucoma ( n = 204, 1.95%), the Journal of Current Ophthalmology ( n = 200, 1.91%), the European Journal of Ophthalmology ( n = 191, 1.82%), the Indian Journal of Ophthalmology ( n = 173, 1.65%), and Journal of Cataract and Refractive Surgery ( n = 171, 1.63%) ( Figure 1D ).

Global distribution of research output. (A) Annual publications and citations of ophthalmology research from 2017 to 2021. (B) Top 10 countries in terms of total publications. (C) Country cooperation networks. (D) Top 10 journals by total publication volume of ophthalmology research in a 5-year period.

Global high-impact documents

The top 25 high-impact articles in ophthalmology published between 2017 and 2021, ranked by total citations, are shown in Table 1 . All the articles had been cited more than 150 times, with the highest number of citations being 419. Of these articles, 10 were published in 2017, 12 in 2018, one in 2019, and two in 2020. In total, 12 of these articles were published in the Ophthalmology and three in the Progress in Retinal and Eye Research. According to the type of publication, there were 16 original research articles and 9 review articles. The keywords involved in the articles are listed in Table 1 , including 5 articles each on OCT and deep learning, 4 articles each on diabetes and macular degeneration, and other related research topics such as glaucoma, artificial intelligence, and drugs.

Top 25 most cited documents published between 2017 and 2021.

Research hotspots

Keyword co-occurrence analysis demonstrated that the three most frequent of all keywords were “glaucoma” ( n = 395), “retina” ( n = 321), and “optical coherence tomography” ( n = 230). In the past 5 years, 157 high-frequency keywords in the field of ophthalmology were identified by setting the minimum frequency of keyword occurrence at 20 times. These keywords formed four clusters: the “glaucoma” cluster (red; 86 items), the “retina” cluster (green; 47 items), the “COVID-19” cluster (blue; 13 items), and the “screening” cluster (yellow; 8 items) ( Figure 2 ). After summarizing the keyword clusters, four research hotspots were identified: epidemiological characteristics and treatment modalities of diseases such as glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy, artificial intelligence and fundus imaging technology, COVID-19-related telemedicine, and screening and prevention of eye diseases.

Ophthalmology research hotspots analysis. The keywords formed four clusters, which were differentiated by color in the diagram, with the same color being the same cluster. The keyword size indicated the number of occurrences of the keyword, whereas the thickness and distance of the connecting lines between the keywords indicated the frequency of co-occurrence between the two keywords.

Research trends

Keyword burst analysis showed that “neural network,” “pharmacokinetics,” “geographic atrophy,” “implementation,” “variability,” “adverse events,” “automated detection,” and “retinal images” were the hot topics of research in the field of ophthalmology through 2021 and displayed the potential to become the research frontiers to achieve breakthroughs shortly ( Figure 3A ).

Ophthalmology research trends analysis. (A) Keyword burst analysis. The red line indicates the year in which the burst of the corresponding keyword began and ended. (B) Subject category analysis. The larger subject categories indicate their greater frequency and importance, and the distance between subject categories indicates how closely they collaborate. The lines between subject categories indicate the collaboration between the subject categories at either end, with the color of the different lines representing the collaboration time in the different subject categories and the thickness representing the degree of collaboration closeness. The color of the temporal rings represents the occurrence of that subject category in different years, the thicker the corresponding temporal rings, the more frequently it occurs, with the time scale at the bottom right.

In terms of subject categories, the top three subject categories with the highest volume of ophthalmology-related research publications were medicine general internal ( n = 1,138, 10.87%), clinical neurology ( n = 482, 4.604%), and surgery ( n = 368, 3.515%) ( Table 2 ). The subject categories of ophthalmology research were divided into two types: one was the traditional ophthalmology-related subject categories, such as medicine general internal, clinical neurology, and surgery, and the other one was the non-ophthalmology-related subject categories, such as engineering, computer science, and chemistry. The analysis of subject category collaboration relationships indicated that over time more collaborative relationships had emerged between non-ophthalmology-related subject categories ( Figure 3B ).

Subject categories in ophthalmology from 2017 to 2021.

Research in the field of ophthalmology showed a year-on-year increase in the number of articles published in the last 5 years, with the most published country being the United States and the most prolific journal being the Ophthalmology. The top 25 high-impact articles worldwide were cited more than 150 times per article. A total of four research hotspots were identified: epidemiological characteristics and treatment modalities of diseases such as glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy, artificial intelligence and fundus imaging technology, COVID-19-related telemedicine, and screening and prevention of eye diseases. Cross-talk between different non-ophthalmology subject categories was also an important trend in ophthalmology.

The annual publication volume, country distribution, and journal distribution of the ophthalmology research articles revealed a global overview of research output in the field of ophthalmology. The output of ophthalmology research showed an increasing trend in the last 5 years, suggesting that the socioeconomic input and scientific output of the subject area were also developing ( 20 ). The individual contributions of some countries to ophthalmology research were previously reported, but there were limitations on the overall evaluation of all countries' contributions to ophthalmology research and of country collaboration ( 13 – 17 ). This study showed that the predominant countries in ophthalmology research included the United States, the United Kingdom, and India, and countries such as Germany, China, and Australia also played an important role in the contribution. Several stable collaborative networks have been formed between countries, which can facilitate cross-border research data sharing and the globalization of scientific research. The top five most published journals showed that ophthalmology research was mainly focused on clinical ophthalmology (Ophthalmology, BMJ Case Reports), basic ophthalmology research (Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science) and neuro-ophthalmology (Journal of Neuro-Ophthalmology, Ophthalmology Retina).

The high-impact articles in ophthalmology indicated that researchers in the field of ophthalmology were primarily concerned with ophthalmological health or disease states, as well as ophthalmological technologies and applications. In terms of health or disease conditions, age-related macular degeneration ( 21 – 24 ), glaucomatous optic neuropathy ( 25 , 26 ), corneal blindness ( 27 ), and other blinding eye diseases occupied important research positions. Research directions such as screening for diabetic retinopathy ( 28 , 29 ), preventing myopia ( 30 ), optimizing visual outcomes, and controlling complications after IOL implantation following cataract surgery were dedicated to the active identification, management, and control of disease risk factors, making the eye disease controllable and manageable ( 31 , 32 ). In addition, researchers were also concerned with the management of Behcet's syndrome ( 33 ) and COVID-19 infection prevention in ophthalmology ( 34 ). In ophthalmology-related technologies, the frontiers were artificial intelligence algorithms ( 23 , 25 , 26 , 35 – 38 ), new pathways for drug delivery ( 39 , 40 ), and new materials for therapy ( 41 ). In ophthalmology-related applications, the pioneering applications were optical coherence tomography ( 23 , 24 , 35 , 42 – 44 ), stem cell therapy, and tissue repair ( 45 ).

After clustering the high-frequency keywords in the past 5 years, four research hotspots in the field of ophthalmology were obtained. First, the epidemiological characteristics and treatment modalities of diseases such as glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy were the hot topics of ophthalmology research. The emergence of these hot topics was consistent with the increasing prevalence of systemic chronic diseases such as diabetes in the last 5 years, and several studies have revealed associations and common biomarkers of ophthalmology and systemic diseases ( 46 – 49 ). More future work needs to further focus on the diagnosis and optimal treatment strategies for blinding diseases associated with systemic conditions ( 50 ). Moreover, deep learning algorithms that could rapidly and non-invasively identify pathological features of eye diseases joined ophthalmology research ( 23 ). Deep learning algorithms could classify age-related cataract types based on slit-lamp photographs, and fully automated AI-based screening systems had been approved for the use in diabetic retinopathy ( 37 , 51 ). Furthermore, the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic brought about an increase in the length of patient visits due to disease control and health-related problems associated with COVID-19 infections, which had a dramatic impact on ophthalmology health care. On the one hand, the close contacts physicians need when attending to patients could increase the risk of cross-infection between patients or between health care workers and patients, resulting in infection control to be optimized in ophthalmology practice. On the other hand, the need for timely intervention for patients was driving the development of telemedicine during the pandemic ( 34 , 52 ). Finally, the development of diagnostic technology has driven ophthalmology research toward early screening and disease prevention.

The keywords that were still bursting until 2021 were research trends. The keywords “neural networks,” “pharmacokinetics,” “automated detection,” and “retinal images” in this part of the keyword list were consistent with the hot research directions obtained by keyword clustering. Other keywords that had burst to 2021 could be newly emerging keywords that had not yet had time to be highly cited, were hotspots for research in ophthalmology, and were likely to continue to be of interest for some times to come. Concerning the disciplinary analysis, the analysis of this study revealed that there was extensive cross-collaboration in various basic areas of non-ophthalmology-related research. Knowledge from non-ophthalmology fields is likely to be more involved in ophthalmology research.

Strengths of the study include a global view of research forces in ophthalmology from a wide range of the literature. Additional study strengths include the revealing of highly cited documents in ophthalmology that provide useful information for researchers. Outcome measures addressed the global research force contributions, research hotspots, and research trends of ophthalmology research, providing an in-depth study of the field of ophthalmology.

Only data from the Web of Science Core Collection database were included in this study, but the Web of Science Core Collection database, as a citation database, already contained comprehensive data on the articles and corresponding citations, which was sufficient for capturing the overall development of the scientific field. In addition, the results of the analysis by the visualization software may include some repetitive and meaningless information. We tried to identify some of the hot topics that were influencing ophthalmology research, so the raw data had been further filtered to remove irrelevant or meaningless words.

In conclusion, this study provided a comprehensive analysis of ophthalmology-related research based on the Web of Science Core Collection database. The hotspots in ophthalmology research were epidemiology, prevention, screening, and treatment of ocular diseases, as well as artificial intelligence and fundus imaging technology and telemedicine. Research trends in ophthalmology research were artificial intelligence, drug development, and fundus diseases. There was an extensive cross-talk of ophthalmology-related research in various basic areas. Knowledge from non-ophthalmology fields is likely to be more involved in ophthalmology research.

Data availability statement

Author contributions.

ZL and GJ designed the study and provided a critical review for the manuscript. YT and WZ wrote the manuscript. YT, WZ, YZ, BZ, YY, and WL collected and analyzed the data. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81873675), the Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation (2022A1515011181), the Teaching Reform Research Program of Sun Yat-sen University (JX3030604024), and the Youth Project of State Key Laboratory of Ophthalmology (2021QN02).

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Hotspots and trends in ophthalmology in recent 5 years: bibliometric analysis in 2017–2021.

• 1 State Key Laboratory of Ophthalmology, Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China
• 2 Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Ophthalmology and Visual Science, Guangzhou, China
• 3 Guangdong Provincial Clinical Research Center for Ocular Diseases, Guangzhou, China
• 4 Zhongshan Medical School, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the hotspots and research trends of ophthalmology research.

Method: Ophthalmology research literature published between 2017 and 2021 was obtained in the Web of Science Core Collection database. The bibliometric analysis and network visualization were performed with the VOSviewer and CiteSpace. Publication-related information, including publication volume, citation counts, countries, journals, keywords, subject categories, and publication time, was analyzed.

Results: A total of 10,469 included ophthalmology publications had been cited a total of 7,995 times during the past 5 years. The top countries and journals for the number of publications were the United States and the Ophthalmology. The top 25 global high-impact documents had been identified using the citation ranking. Keyword co-occurrence analysis showed that the hotspots in ophthalmology research were epidemiological characteristics and treatment modalities of ocular diseases, artificial intelligence and fundus imaging technology, COVID-19-related telemedicine, and screening and prevention of ocular diseases. Keyword burst analysis revealed that “neural network,” “pharmacokinetics,” “geographic atrophy,” “implementation,” “variability,” “adverse events,” “automated detection,” and “retinal images” were the research trends of research in the field of ophthalmology through 2021. The analysis of the subject categories demonstrated the close cooperation relationships that existed between different subject categories, and collaborations with non-ophthalmology-related subject categories were increasing over time in the field of ophthalmology research.

Conclusions: The hotspots in ophthalmology research were epidemiology, prevention, screening, and treatment of ocular diseases, as well as artificial intelligence and fundus imaging technology and telemedicine. Research trends in ophthalmology research were artificial intelligence, drug development, and fundus diseases. Knowledge from non-ophthalmology fields is likely to be more involved in ophthalmology research.

Introduction

More than 2.2 billion people worldwide were visually impaired or blind to date, with an annual economic burden of more than $269.4 billion ( 1 ). Development in ophthalmology is essential for the prevention and treatment of eye diseases, and relevant research is growing rapidly in breadth and depth and forming complex knowledge networks. Glaucoma, age-related macular degeneration, and some hereditary eye diseases were previously considered irreversible blindness-causing diseases, and progress had been made to cure or alleviate them by modulating new targets or using new technologies ( 2 – 4 ). Cataracts and posterior capsular opacification were previously thought to be treated only with surgery, but in the recent years, there had been new developments in research into drugs that inhibit cataract formation ( 5 , 6 ). With the advances in the field of ophthalmology, new hope has emerged in areas previously considered untreatable or treatable only through non-pharmaceutical interventions ( 7 – 10 ). However, it is not feasible to analyze the overall overview of the field of ophthalmology and to explore its research hotspots and trends with a traditional systematic review, which is not conducive to the development of the field.

Bibliometric analysis is the quantitative analysis of the universal scientific production data in a specific field ( 11 ). Bibliometric method obtains the history and current status of the research field development by analyzing the scientific research results and can make predictions of the research field ( 12 ). Previous studies have conducted bibliometric analysis on individual country contributions or focused only on randomized controlled studies in ophthalmology and citation patterns in ophthalmology journals ( 13 – 19 ). Unsolved questions still remain as to how to quantitatively evaluate the contribution of different global research forces (countries, journals) in ophthalmology and identify hotspots and future research trends in ophthalmology based on a wide range of research results in different subfields of ophthalmology.

This study was intended to quantitatively analyze and visualize the global ophthalmology publication from 2017 to 2021 using bibliometric methods to explore the global research forces (countries, journals), possible hotspots, and future trends of ophthalmology research and to provide insight for research development and public health policy formulation in the field of ophthalmology.

Data sources

All the data used in this study were obtained from the Web of Science Core Collection (Clarivate Analytics, Philadelphia, PA, USA). The search was conducted by searching the Topic Subject retrieval field using “ophthalmology” as the subject word. Articles published between 2017 and 2021 were included, with no restrictions on the language type or document type of the articles. Data were collected on 28 January 2022.

Data collection and processing

To describe the number of articles published per year, the number of annual citations of the articles, the number of country publications, and the number of journal publications in the field of ophthalmology, relevant data were downloaded in the Web of Science Core Collection. All ophthalmology-related articles with their corresponding references and all publication-related information were exported as plain text for country collaboration analysis, keyword co-occurrence analysis, keyword burst analysis, and subject category co-occurrence analysis. To make the results more informative, keywords that were not relevant or meaningful to the analysis were filtered and removed during the data processing.

Statistical and bibliometric analysis

Statistical descriptions of the number of annual publications, the number of annual citations, the number of country publications, and the number of journal publications were performed using Microsoft Excel 2019 (Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA, USA) and GraphPad Prism version 8.4.2 (GraphPad Software, La Jolla, CA, USA).

Bibliometric analysis was carried out using VOSviewer (Leiden University's Centre for Science and Technology Studies, Leiden, the Netherlands) to obtain country collaborations and research hotspots. Several clusters were formed based on the country cooperation analysis, with countries of the same color belonging to the same cluster. Countries within clusters cooperated relatively closely, whereas cooperation among countries between clusters was relatively weak. The research hotspots were obtained from the clusters formed by the co-occurrence analysis of high-frequency keywords. The common characteristics of high-frequency keywords within the same cluster revealed the research hotspots. The frequency of keyword occurrences was used to weight the size of the keywords. The larger the keyword, the higher the frequency of occurrence.

Furthermore, CiteSpace V version 5.8.R3 (Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, USA) was used for bibliometric analysis to obtain the burst keywords and subject category cooperation. The keyword burst analysis was performed to obtain temporal trends in keywords in the field of ophthalmology. The most recent burst keywords were defined as research frontier topics, indicating the potential for continued research breakthroughs in these topics. The co-occurrence of subject categories was analyzed to obtain the collaboration of subject categories. The number of occurrences of a subject category was used to weight the subject category. The more occurrences a subject category had, the larger it was. Temporal trends in subject category occurrences were represented by temporal rings of subject categories, the thickness of which represented the number of subject category occurrences in the corresponding year. Interdisciplinary cooperation was represented by the connecting line between subject categories. The thicker the connecting line, the closer the collaboration.

Global research output distribution

A total of 139 countries contributed to the publications related to ophthalmology research, with a total of 10,469 articles, which were cited 7,995 times. The number of publications had increased year by year, but there was an inflection point in citation counts. Citation counts increased year by year from 2017, reaching 2,650 citations in 2020, whereas citations in 2021 decreased compared to 2020 ( Figure 1A ). The analysis of countries showed that the United States had the highest number of publications, more than three to four times the number of other countries, followed by the United Kingdom, India, Germany, and China ( Figure 1B ). Country collaboration analysis yielded four clusters, with close cooperation between countries within each cluster ( Figure 1C ). Publications related to ophthalmology research were distributed in 1,876 journals, and the top 10 journals in terms of the number of articles published were the Ophthalmology ( n = 1,263, 12.06%), the Ophthalmology. Retina ( n = 580, 5.54%), the BMJ Case Reports ( n = 270, 2.58%), the Journal of Neuro-Ophthalmology: the official journal of the North American Neuro-Ophthalmology Society ( n = 260, 2.48%), the Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science ( n = 214, 2.04%), the Ophthalmology, Glaucoma ( n = 204, 1.95%), the Journal of Current Ophthalmology ( n = 200, 1.91%), the European Journal of Ophthalmology ( n = 191, 1.82%), the Indian Journal of Ophthalmology ( n = 173, 1.65%), and Journal of Cataract and Refractive Surgery ( n = 171, 1.63%) ( Figure 1D ).

Figure 1 . Global distribution of research output. (A) Annual publications and citations of ophthalmology research from 2017 to 2021. (B) Top 10 countries in terms of total publications. (C) Country cooperation networks. (D) Top 10 journals by total publication volume of ophthalmology research in a 5-year period.

Global high-impact documents

The top 25 high-impact articles in ophthalmology published between 2017 and 2021, ranked by total citations, are shown in Table 1 . All the articles had been cited more than 150 times, with the highest number of citations being 419. Of these articles, 10 were published in 2017, 12 in 2018, one in 2019, and two in 2020. In total, 12 of these articles were published in the Ophthalmology and three in the Progress in Retinal and Eye Research. According to the type of publication, there were 16 original research articles and 9 review articles. The keywords involved in the articles are listed in Table 1 , including 5 articles each on OCT and deep learning, 4 articles each on diabetes and macular degeneration, and other related research topics such as glaucoma, artificial intelligence, and drugs.

Table 1 . Top 25 most cited documents published between 2017 and 2021.

Research hotspots

Keyword co-occurrence analysis demonstrated that the three most frequent of all keywords were “glaucoma” ( n = 395), “retina” ( n = 321), and “optical coherence tomography” ( n = 230). In the past 5 years, 157 high-frequency keywords in the field of ophthalmology were identified by setting the minimum frequency of keyword occurrence at 20 times. These keywords formed four clusters: the “glaucoma” cluster (red; 86 items), the “retina” cluster (green; 47 items), the “COVID-19” cluster (blue; 13 items), and the “screening” cluster (yellow; 8 items) ( Figure 2 ). After summarizing the keyword clusters, four research hotspots were identified: epidemiological characteristics and treatment modalities of diseases such as glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy, artificial intelligence and fundus imaging technology, COVID-19-related telemedicine, and screening and prevention of eye diseases.

Figure 2 . Ophthalmology research hotspots analysis. The keywords formed four clusters, which were differentiated by color in the diagram, with the same color being the same cluster. The keyword size indicated the number of occurrences of the keyword, whereas the thickness and distance of the connecting lines between the keywords indicated the frequency of co-occurrence between the two keywords.

Research trends

Keyword burst analysis showed that “neural network,” “pharmacokinetics,” “geographic atrophy,” “implementation,” “variability,” “adverse events,” “automated detection,” and “retinal images” were the hot topics of research in the field of ophthalmology through 2021 and displayed the potential to become the research frontiers to achieve breakthroughs shortly ( Figure 3A ).

Figure 3 . Ophthalmology research trends analysis. (A) Keyword burst analysis. The red line indicates the year in which the burst of the corresponding keyword began and ended. (B) Subject category analysis. The larger subject categories indicate their greater frequency and importance, and the distance between subject categories indicates how closely they collaborate. The lines between subject categories indicate the collaboration between the subject categories at either end, with the color of the different lines representing the collaboration time in the different subject categories and the thickness representing the degree of collaboration closeness. The color of the temporal rings represents the occurrence of that subject category in different years, the thicker the corresponding temporal rings, the more frequently it occurs, with the time scale at the bottom right.

In terms of subject categories, the top three subject categories with the highest volume of ophthalmology-related research publications were medicine general internal ( n = 1,138, 10.87%), clinical neurology ( n = 482, 4.604%), and surgery ( n = 368, 3.515%) ( Table 2 ). The subject categories of ophthalmology research were divided into two types: one was the traditional ophthalmology-related subject categories, such as medicine general internal, clinical neurology, and surgery, and the other one was the non-ophthalmology-related subject categories, such as engineering, computer science, and chemistry. The analysis of subject category collaboration relationships indicated that over time more collaborative relationships had emerged between non-ophthalmology-related subject categories ( Figure 3B ).

Table 2 . Subject categories in ophthalmology from 2017 to 2021.

Research in the field of ophthalmology showed a year-on-year increase in the number of articles published in the last 5 years, with the most published country being the United States and the most prolific journal being the Ophthalmology. The top 25 high-impact articles worldwide were cited more than 150 times per article. A total of four research hotspots were identified: epidemiological characteristics and treatment modalities of diseases such as glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy, artificial intelligence and fundus imaging technology, COVID-19-related telemedicine, and screening and prevention of eye diseases. Cross-talk between different non-ophthalmology subject categories was also an important trend in ophthalmology.

The annual publication volume, country distribution, and journal distribution of the ophthalmology research articles revealed a global overview of research output in the field of ophthalmology. The output of ophthalmology research showed an increasing trend in the last 5 years, suggesting that the socioeconomic input and scientific output of the subject area were also developing ( 20 ). The individual contributions of some countries to ophthalmology research were previously reported, but there were limitations on the overall evaluation of all countries' contributions to ophthalmology research and of country collaboration ( 13 – 17 ). This study showed that the predominant countries in ophthalmology research included the United States, the United Kingdom, and India, and countries such as Germany, China, and Australia also played an important role in the contribution. Several stable collaborative networks have been formed between countries, which can facilitate cross-border research data sharing and the globalization of scientific research. The top five most published journals showed that ophthalmology research was mainly focused on clinical ophthalmology (Ophthalmology, BMJ Case Reports), basic ophthalmology research (Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science) and neuro-ophthalmology (Journal of Neuro-Ophthalmology, Ophthalmology Retina).

The high-impact articles in ophthalmology indicated that researchers in the field of ophthalmology were primarily concerned with ophthalmological health or disease states, as well as ophthalmological technologies and applications. In terms of health or disease conditions, age-related macular degeneration ( 21 – 24 ), glaucomatous optic neuropathy ( 25 , 26 ), corneal blindness ( 27 ), and other blinding eye diseases occupied important research positions. Research directions such as screening for diabetic retinopathy ( 28 , 29 ), preventing myopia ( 30 ), optimizing visual outcomes, and controlling complications after IOL implantation following cataract surgery were dedicated to the active identification, management, and control of disease risk factors, making the eye disease controllable and manageable ( 31 , 32 ). In addition, researchers were also concerned with the management of Behcet's syndrome ( 33 ) and COVID-19 infection prevention in ophthalmology ( 34 ). In ophthalmology-related technologies, the frontiers were artificial intelligence algorithms ( 23 , 25 , 26 , 35 – 38 ), new pathways for drug delivery ( 39 , 40 ), and new materials for therapy ( 41 ). In ophthalmology-related applications, the pioneering applications were optical coherence tomography ( 23 , 24 , 35 , 42 – 44 ), stem cell therapy, and tissue repair ( 45 ).

After clustering the high-frequency keywords in the past 5 years, four research hotspots in the field of ophthalmology were obtained. First, the epidemiological characteristics and treatment modalities of diseases such as glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy were the hot topics of ophthalmology research. The emergence of these hot topics was consistent with the increasing prevalence of systemic chronic diseases such as diabetes in the last 5 years, and several studies have revealed associations and common biomarkers of ophthalmology and systemic diseases ( 46 – 49 ). More future work needs to further focus on the diagnosis and optimal treatment strategies for blinding diseases associated with systemic conditions ( 50 ). Moreover, deep learning algorithms that could rapidly and non-invasively identify pathological features of eye diseases joined ophthalmology research ( 23 ). Deep learning algorithms could classify age-related cataract types based on slit-lamp photographs, and fully automated AI-based screening systems had been approved for the use in diabetic retinopathy ( 37 , 51 ). Furthermore, the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic brought about an increase in the length of patient visits due to disease control and health-related problems associated with COVID-19 infections, which had a dramatic impact on ophthalmology health care. On the one hand, the close contacts physicians need when attending to patients could increase the risk of cross-infection between patients or between health care workers and patients, resulting in infection control to be optimized in ophthalmology practice. On the other hand, the need for timely intervention for patients was driving the development of telemedicine during the pandemic ( 34 , 52 ). Finally, the development of diagnostic technology has driven ophthalmology research toward early screening and disease prevention.

The keywords that were still bursting until 2021 were research trends. The keywords “neural networks,” “pharmacokinetics,” “automated detection,” and “retinal images” in this part of the keyword list were consistent with the hot research directions obtained by keyword clustering. Other keywords that had burst to 2021 could be newly emerging keywords that had not yet had time to be highly cited, were hotspots for research in ophthalmology, and were likely to continue to be of interest for some times to come. Concerning the disciplinary analysis, the analysis of this study revealed that there was extensive cross-collaboration in various basic areas of non-ophthalmology-related research. Knowledge from non-ophthalmology fields is likely to be more involved in ophthalmology research.

Strengths of the study include a global view of research forces in ophthalmology from a wide range of the literature. Additional study strengths include the revealing of highly cited documents in ophthalmology that provide useful information for researchers. Outcome measures addressed the global research force contributions, research hotspots, and research trends of ophthalmology research, providing an in-depth study of the field of ophthalmology.

Only data from the Web of Science Core Collection database were included in this study, but the Web of Science Core Collection database, as a citation database, already contained comprehensive data on the articles and corresponding citations, which was sufficient for capturing the overall development of the scientific field. In addition, the results of the analysis by the visualization software may include some repetitive and meaningless information. We tried to identify some of the hot topics that were influencing ophthalmology research, so the raw data had been further filtered to remove irrelevant or meaningless words.

In conclusion, this study provided a comprehensive analysis of ophthalmology-related research based on the Web of Science Core Collection database. The hotspots in ophthalmology research were epidemiology, prevention, screening, and treatment of ocular diseases, as well as artificial intelligence and fundus imaging technology and telemedicine. Research trends in ophthalmology research were artificial intelligence, drug development, and fundus diseases. There was an extensive cross-talk of ophthalmology-related research in various basic areas. Knowledge from non-ophthalmology fields is likely to be more involved in ophthalmology research.

Data availability statement

Publicly available datasets were analyzed in this study. This data can be found here: https://www.webofscience.com/wos/alldb/basic-search .

Author contributions

ZL and GJ designed the study and provided a critical review for the manuscript. YT and WZ wrote the manuscript. YT, WZ, YZ, BZ, YY, and WL collected and analyzed the data. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81873675), the Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation (2022A1515011181), the Teaching Reform Research Program of Sun Yat-sen University (JX3030604024), and the Youth Project of State Key Laboratory of Ophthalmology (2021QN02).

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Keywords: ophthalmology, hotspots, research trend, bibliometric analysis, literature

Citation: Tan Y, Zhu W, Zou Y, Zhang B, Yu Y, Li W, Jin G and Liu Z (2022) Hotspots and trends in ophthalmology in recent 5 years: Bibliometric analysis in 2017–2021. Front. Med. 9:988133. doi: 10.3389/fmed.2022.988133

Received: 07 July 2022; Accepted: 27 July 2022; Published: 26 August 2022.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2022 Tan, Zhu, Zou, Zhang, Yu, Li, Jin and Liu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Guangming Jin, jingm@mail2.sysu.edu.cn ; Zhenzhen Liu, liuzhenzhen@gzzoc.com

† These authors have contributed equally to this work

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Research Topics

The Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences offers medical students and residents a variety of research opportunities. Please browse the basic science, translational and clinical research projects currently underway below.

Research Topic: Corneal endothelial health judged by endothelial image analysis

Description.

Endothelium is critical for dehydrating the cornea and keeping it clear. With loss of its barrier and pump function, the cornea swells and corneal transplantation may be needed.

Changes in the number, shape and size of the cells may predict loss of function.

Key Research Question/Hypothesis 

Effect of drugs, surgery, devices, and preservation media on the endothelium.

Images of the endothelium captured with either a specular or confocal microscope that can take repeated pictures of the endothelial cells non-invasively in patients. Once images are captured, they can be analyzed with special software in the Cornea Image Analysis Reading Center (CIARC) of the Department.

Student learn these techniques working with both patients and technicians, depending on the project.

Ongoing projects.

Status of IRB/IACUC approval

Image analysis studies in CIARC approved; ongoing projects have IRB approval. If launching a new project, IRB approval will need to be obtained.

Prospects for Publishing and Presenting

Excellent; we have a long track record of publications in major journals and presentations at national and international conferences.

Contact Information

Tanisha Rankins

Secretary to Dr. Jonathan Lass

• Email:  [email protected]  
• Phone: 216.983.5164

Research Topic: Retinopathy of Prematurity and other Pediatric Studies

Effect of low birth weight on the eye’s development.

Data analysis, chart review.

Several ongoing projects—long-term data collection.

Current study has IRB approval. Any new studies will need IRB approval.

Excellent; the data base study has been presented at ARVO and is in preparation for publication in a major pediatric journal.

Dr. Faruk Orge

• Email:  [email protected]
• Phone: 440.684.1743

Research Topic: Cholesterol and function of the retina

Cholesterol is essential for life in mammal. Yet, if it is chronically in excess, it is a risk factor for cardiovascular and Alzheimer's disease and likely age-related macular degeneration.

To delineate the putative link between cholesterol and age-related macular degeneration.

Characterization of retinal function of mice deficient in different enzymes involved in cholesterol elimination. Animals are assessed by optical coherence tomography, electroretinography, fluorescein angiography and optomotor response.

Students learn these techniques working with post-doctoral researchers responsible for these projects.

All studies are approved by the IACUC.

Dr. Irina Pikuleva

• Email:  [email protected]
• Phone: 216.368.3823

Research Topic: Contact Lens Related Complications

Ongoing clinical trials related to corneal infiltrative events associated with daily or extended wear of soft contact lenses. Fungal and bacterial biofilm-contact lens models and susceptibility to contact lens care products.

Assessment of sub-clinical corneal inflammation with confocal microscopy. Assessment of bacterial endotoxin and relationship to infiltrative events with soft lenses.

• Ocular and lens cultures for assessment of bioburden
• Reading/Assessment of stored confocal images
• Collection of worn lenses for biofilm formation
• Lab Assays (in conjunction with Dr. Pearlman’s lab) for endotoxin on lens surfaces or within solution

Active approved IRB protocols exist for current clinical trials on infiltrative events, biofilm studies, and assays of previously collected lenses, tears and images.

Excellent chance for authorship on investigator initiated studies of biofilm and endotoxin assays. Listing of authors will follow standard publishing guidelines. 

Other corporate-funded work may or may not allow authorship.

Dr. Loretta Szcztoka-Flynn

• Email:  [email protected]

Research Topic: Mechanisms of retinal degenerations

How do mutations in the light receptor rhodopsin cause retinal degenerations like retinitis pigmentosa? How does the retina protect against oxidative stresses that can lead to retinal degenerations such as retinitis pigmentosa and age-related macular degeneration?

A multi-disciplinary approach is employed that includes biochemistry, molecular biology, animal models and biophysics.

All animal studies have approved IACUC protocols.

Excellent with track record of publications in major journals and presentations at national and international conferences.

Information about the laboratory can be found by browsing the Park Lab webpage.

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Vision for the future: pioneering strategies in China’s battle against myopia

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Last update: Aug 19, 2024

Study shows macrophages form in eye before birth, offering hope for diabetic retinopathy treatment

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Ophthalmology news

Macrophages, also known as scavenger cells, are part of our immune system. They destroy invading pathogens and are found in the organs and the bloodstream. Led by Prof. Dr. Peter Wieghofer, professor of cellular neuroanatomy, ...

Aug 19, 2024

Make eye exams part of the back-to-school checklist. Your kids and their teachers will thank you

When a little boy burst into tears in her third-grade classroom last fall, Audrey Jost pulled him aside while the other kids were at recess. He said he was getting headaches and falling behind the other students, so Jost ...

Aug 17, 2024

Eyes on the field: Researchers use neuro-ophthalmologic principles to improve NFL officiating

Hamza Memon and Nicholas Panzo, students at Texas A&M University School of Engineering Medicine (ENMED), are leading an innovative project at the intersection of sports and ophthalmology to improve National Football League ...

Aug 15, 2024

Signs your child may need glasses

A person can begin to lose their eyesight at any age, and recognizing the signs and symptoms of vision loss is important to their eye health. An ophthalmologist at Baylor College of Medicine says noticing these signs is especially ...

Outdoor exposure patterns associated with less myopic shift in children

Continuous outdoor exposure of at least 15 minutes accompanied with no less than 2,000 lux sunlight intensity is associated with less myopic shift among children, according to a study published online Aug. 13 in JAMA Network ...

Aug 14, 2024

John Lennon wore contact lenses that kept on pinging out. Then he smoked pot and the rest is history

When you think of John Lennon from The Beatles, you're likely to picture him with his circular, wire-rimmed glasses.

Aug 12, 2024

Gene therapy shows promise in glaucoma research

Pete Williams is one of few researchers in Sweden concentrating on glaucoma. The goal is an effective treatment, something that stops the degenerative process in the nerve cells of the eye.

Aug 7, 2024

Brain implants to restore sight face a fundamental problem—more pixels don't ensure better vision

Elon Musk recently pronounced that the next Neuralink project will be a "Blindsight" cortical implant to restore vision: "Resolution will be low at first, like early Nintendo graphics, but ultimately may exceed normal human ...

AI model has strong performance for identifying pediatric eye disease

An artificial intelligence (AI) model has strong performance for accurately identifying myopia, strabismus, and ptosis using mobile photographs, according to a study published online Aug 6 in JAMA Network Open.

Researcher develops Korea's first modified intraocular lens power selection method

A new modified intraocular lens (IOL) power selection method was developed, which has more accurate power calculation than the existing method. Dr. Youngsub Eom of Department of Ophthalmology of Korea University's Ansan Hospital ...

Medicaid vision coverage for adults varies widely by state

A new study shows that 6.5 million Medicaid enrollees (12%) lived in states without coverage for routine adult eye exams; and 14.6 million (27%) resided in states without coverage for eyeglasses. The study based on 2022-23 ...

Aug 6, 2024

Q&A: Olympic vision: Strabismus, coloboma and eyeglasses on the world stage

Olympic gymnast Stephen Nedoroscik, affectionately dubbed "pommel horse guy" by the internet, is capturing hearts not just for his bronze-winning talent, but also for his eyeglasses.

Field of vision data helping to track health outcomes

Researchers at The University of Western Australia have designed a new method to extract data on a large scale to assess and track changes in people's field of vision.

Aug 5, 2024

Novel mechanism of retinal degeneration

Photoreceptors, like polarized sensory neurons, are essential for light sensation and phototransduction, which are highly dependent on the photoreceptor cilium. Disruption of photoreceptor cilia has been implicated in a variety ...

Jul 31, 2024

New model shows cortical implants like Elon Musk's Blindsight are unlikely to 'exceed normal human vision'

Elon Musk recently declared on X that Blindsight, a cortical implant to restore vision, would have low resolution at first "but may ultimately exceed normal human vision."

Jul 29, 2024

GLP1RAs tied to greater risk of diabetic retinopathy progression than SGLT2is

In patients with diabetes and established diabetic retinopathy (DR), treatment with glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonists (GLP1RAs) is associated with increased risks of DR progression compared with sodium-glucose cotransporter ...

Jul 26, 2024

New study shows critical improvements in treating rare eye cancer in children

The evolution of retinoblastoma treatment over the past 15 years has resulted in a higher likelihood of vision preservation without compromising survival, according to research released at the Society of NeuroInterventional ...

Jul 25, 2024

Key mechanism of intraocular pressure regulation suggests novel treatment approaches for glaucoma

Glaucoma is one of the leading causes of visual impairment and blindness. According to statistics from the Hospital Authority, in Hong Kong, three out of every 100 individuals aged over 40 suffer from glaucoma.

Gene therapy discovery triggers hope for glaucoma patients

The protein tau is essential to the function of cells in the brain and central nervous system, but when over-produced under certain conditions, it forms tangles that clog the cells' internal structures. These tangles have ...

Jul 23, 2024

Taking a closer look at eye cancer: Research offers new insight into high rate of metastasis

New research from Edith Cowan University (ECU) is one step closer to understanding why uveal melanoma, the deadliest form of eye cancer, has such a high rate of metastasis.

Jul 22, 2024

Combination treatment based shows promise for treatment of retinal degenerations, drug repurposing study finds

Drug repurposing shows promise in the treatment of retinal degenerations, according to a new study by an international team of researchers, published in Nature Communications. A combination treatment incorporating three existing ...

Study finds people who lost sight early in life are less accurate at estimating auditory distances

New research has found that people who experience partial vision loss in early childhood find it more difficult to accurately judge the location of a sound than those who lose sight later in life.

Jul 19, 2024

Subretinal adeno-associated virus T-cell inhibition: Exploring potential existence of anti-transgene immune responses

A new study shows that subretinal adeno-associated virus 8 (AAV8) injections cause proinflammatory T-cell immune response against the transgene product. According to the study, published in the journal Human Gene Therapy, ...

Jul 18, 2024

The risks of eyelash extensions aren't pretty, from cornea erosion to cancer-causing glue

Ultra long, thick eyelashes might be in vogue, but are they worth the expense—and the risk to health?

Jul 17, 2024

New study shows promising diagnosis of multiple sclerosis from images of the eye

Researchers at Durham University, UK and Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Iran have developed an innovative approach to diagnosing multiple sclerosis using advanced eye imaging techniques.

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