All the award winners

Changing the world

Congratulations to all the prize winners at the 38th Congress of the ESCRS

MICHAEL BLUMENTHAL AWARD Dr Hisaharu Suzuki, Japan, won the Michael Blumenthal Award for overall winner in the 2020 ESCRS video competition. Entitled “Hydrogen will change the world of ophthalmology”, Dr Suzuki impressed the judges with his research showing that hydrogen’s ability to selectively scavenge free radicals, and in particular cytotoxic hydroxyl, can improve outcomes in the treatment of retinal ischaemia as well as in cataract surgery.

Dr Suzuki’s study examined the effect of hydrogen in an irrigation solution in an animal study and a clinical trial and demonstrated its usefulness as a new method for protecting corneal endothelium in phacoemulsification.

Dr Suzuki graduated from Nippon Medical School in 2001 and joined the faculty in the Department of Ophthalmology at Nippon Medical School. He obtained a PhD in Medicine in 2009. In 2016, he became Associate professor in the Department of Ophthalmology at Nippon Medical School Musashikosugi Hospital. He opened the private clinic “Zengyo Suzuki Eye Clinic” in 2018. He is currently Visiting Assistant professor in the Department of Ophthalmology at Nippon Medical School.

ESCRS POSTER AWARD: REFRACTIVE First prize for best refractive poster was awarded to Emilio TorresNetto, Switzerland, for his poster “Corneal cross-linking for treating infectious keratitis: final results of the prospective randomized controlled multicentre trial”. Dr Torres-Netto’s prospective, randomised phase III study set out to analyse the time to corneal epithelisation with photoactivated chromophore for infectious keratitis-corneal cross-linking (PACK-CXL) as a first-line treatment in early infectious corneal ulcers, and compare it to antimicrobial therapy, which is the current standard of care.

A total of 42 patients were included in the study, 23 in the medication group and 19 in the PACK-CXL group. Grampositive cocci were the most commonly identified pathogens in the study. Cases of fungal infection were shown to have worse visual acuity both at presentation and at discharge. No significant differences in corneal re-epithelisation time were observed between the medication and PACK-CXL groups.

“Our results suggest a role for PACK-CXL as an alternative to antimicrobials as primary treatment for infectious corneal infiltrates and early corneal ulcers,” concluded Dr Torres-Netto. ESCRS POSTER AWARD: CATARACT Helene Bailleul from France won first prize for best cataract poster for her poster on the “Rate of re-intervention in paediatric cataract surgery with ‘bag-inthe-lens’ fixation: ten years of experience”.

Dr Bailleul’s retrospective study looked at the rate and reasons of secondary surgery in 76 paediatric patients implanted between 2009 and 2019 using Marie-José Tassignon’s bag-in-the-lens (BIL) technique.

The results reported just nine reoperations over the 10-year period.

“The prevalence of posterior capsule opacification tends to be close to 0% if both the posterior and anterior capsulorhexis are well calibrated and if the BIL implant is well positioned in both capsules,” Dr Bailleul concluded.

JOHN HENAHAN PRIZE The winner of the 2020 John Henahan Prize was Dr Jennifer Kim, UK. The topic for this year’s essay was “Will Clinicians Be Replaced By A Robot To Perform Cataract Surgery?”

Dr Kim studied medicine at Manchester Medical School, United Kingdom. She has recently completed her training at Manchester Royal Eye Hospital and is due to start her Corneal Fellowship at Birmingham and Midland Eye Centre. She has a special interest in Cornea and ocular surface diseases and after her fellowship, she hopes to pursue a career in this field.

“Winning this prize has allowed me to connect with colleagues and the ophthalmic community worldwide during this difficult time,” said Dr Kim. “When working in a clinical environment we have to keep a poker face whilst carrying a huge amount of emotion, and this can be difficult to balance as a trainee. Many of us are feeling additional stress from change in, or lack of, routine and overall uncertainty around COVID-19. Jotting down my thoughts regularly during this time has helped me to clear my mind and stay grounded. I would like to thank all the frontline healthcare workers in every corner of the world and also the ESCRS for giving me this prestigious award,” she said.

Emanuel Rosen, chief medical editor of EuroTimes and chairman of the judging panel, congratulated Dr Kim on winning the prize and said that all the submissions were of the highest quality.

“All of the entries were very well written even if I did not always agree with the content. In summary, no writer believes that robots in anterior segment ophthalmic surgery will be anything but a companion device for anterior segment ophthalmic surgery.”