A detailed food-frequency questionnaire was administered at baseline among 39,876 female health professionals (mean [SD] age: 54.6 [7.0] years) to examine whether intake of –3 fatty acids and fish affects incidence of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) in women.

It was reported that 38,022 women completed the questionnaire and were free of a diagnosis of AMD. The main outcome measure was incident AMD responsible for a reduction in best-corrected visual acuity to 20/30 or worse based on self-report confirmed by medical record review.

During an average of 10 years of follow up, 235 cases of AMD, most characterized by some combination of drusen and retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) changes, were confirmed. It was noted that women in the highest tertile of intake for docosahexaenoic acid, compared with those in the lowest, had a multivariate-adjusted relative risk of AMD of 0.62 (95% confidence interval, 0.44–0.87). For eicosapentaenoic acid, women in the highest tertile of intake had a relative risk of 0.66 (95% confidence interval, 0.48–0.92). Consistent with the findings for docosahexaenoic acid and eicosapentaenoic acid, women who consumed 1 or more servings of fish per week, compared with those who consumed less than 1 serving per month, had a relative risk of AMD of 0.58 (95% confidence interval, 0.38–0.87).

In conclusion, these prospective data from a large cohort of female health professionals without a diagnosis of AMD at baseline indicate that regular consumption of docosahexaenoic acid and eicosapentaenoic acid and fish was associated with a significantly decreased risk of incident AMD and may be of benefit in primary prevention of AMD.

The authors of this large, prospective cohort study examined factors affecting penetrating corneal graft survival and visual outcomes in patients aged less than 20 years and found that corneal grafts for keratoconus in adolescents show excellent survival.

They searched the records of 14,865 followed penetrating corneal grafts in 11,929 patients to identify 765 grafts in 640 patients aged younger than 20 years of age at the time of graft. Using Kaplan-Meier survival plots and Cox proportional hazards regression analysis, they analyzed records submitted to the Australian Corneal Graft Registry by 381 ophthalmic surgeons and 253 follow-up practitioners from May 1985 to June 2009. Probability of corneal graft survival and Snellen acuity at the time of most recent follow up and at defined intervals post-graft were the main outcome measures.

According to the study authors, infants (<5 years) exhibited poorer graft survival than children aged 5 to 12 years and adolescents (13–19 years) exhibited better corneal graft survival than other age groups; 86% of grafts in adolescents were for keratoconus. They reported that factors significantly affecting corneal graft survival in pediatric patients included indication for graft, graft inflammation, history of intraocular surgery, vascularization, rejection episodes, post-graft operative procedures and refractive surgery. The authors also found that 14% of pediatric grafts failed, of which 65% failed within 2 years post-graft and that 44% of failures were due to unknown causes (18) or irreversible rejection (30).

They determined that infants exhibit poor graft survival and visual outcomes, especially those undergoing transplantation for Peters' anomaly and that corneal graft survival and visual outcomes vary more by indication for graft than recipient age. The major reason for graft failure is irreversible rejection. Corneal transplantation improves overall bilateral vision in pediatric patients.

To determine the incidence of endophathlmitis after 20-, 23- and 25-gauge pars plana vitrectomies (PPVs), investigators conducted a retrospective comparative case series of consecutive patients at 11 centers from Latin America during the years 2005 to 2009.

They identified PPV cases through a search of the billing records of each institution and excluded cases of PPV performed in the management of trauma, endophthalmitis and combined PPV phacoemulsification cases. The study investigators diagnosed endophthalmitis by clinical criteria regardless of the microbiologic results and compared the incidence of post-PPV endophthalmitis between 20-, 23- and 25-gauge PPVs.

They identified 35,427 cases of PPV during the study period (n=19,865 for 20 gauge, n=10,845 for 23 gauge and n=4,717 for 25 gauge). They reported that the 5-year post-PPV endophthalmitis incidence rates were 0.020% (4 of 19,865), 0.028% (3 of 10,845) and 0.021% (1 of 4,717) for 20 gauge, 23 gauge and 25 gauge, respectively (p=0.9685).

To conclude, small-gauge transconjunctival PPV does not appear to increase the rates of post-PPV endophthalmitis.