Dr Glasson returns from attending two face to face international Ophthalmology conferences in Europe.

The first conference he attended was the international Ocular Oncology meeting which was held in Leiden in The Netherlands. This meeting is only held every two years and he stated that it was nice to see all the participants face to face rather than over a computer. The conference covered a range of topics on tumours in and around the eye but some of the highlights were on papers presented on treatment of metastatic choroidal melanoma.

This is a concerning disease for its potential to spread from the eye to the liver and elsewhere. Newer treatments directed to targeted therapies (immunotherapy) are being trialled in a number of studies around the world, the results of these look very promising at this stage. In addition to this study the Queensland Ocular Oncology Service (consisting Dr Warrier, Dr McGrath and Dr Glasson) have been recruited to be involved with one arm of an international trial of treating small choroidal melanomas using virus vector laser induced reaction within the tumour leading to their regression.

The second conference attended by Dr Glasson was the Oxford Ophthalmological Congress, which was held in Oxford, England. At that meeting, Dr Glasson presented a case from the Queensland Ocular Oncology Service which had never been reported in the world up until January of this year. This is an extremely rare tumour that is found in other parts of the body but rarely the eye.

Dr Glasson stated that one of the take home messages from the meeting was for those of you who have Glaucoma is that recent studies indicate that laser treatment maybe the preferred option rather than eye drops in treating primary open angle glaucoma.