Constance Okeke, MD:
I was a early adopter of MIGS, or one could call it minimally invasive glaucoma surgery, or it’s also termed microinvasive glaucoma surgery. I was an early adopter because I saw that there was a need to help patients surgically that was a safer approach. We have traditional glaucoma surgeries and they can be very effective, but they can also be route with complications that are not the outcome that you want for your patient.
With the MIGS devices, they offer a safer approach because the effectiveness of lowering the eye pressure is there. Oftentimes, patients can get off of one or maybe more medications, which can make their quality of life enhanced. A lot of these procedures are very easily coupled with cataract surgery, so you can have the option of improving your vision with cataract removal, and then also having your glaucoma better controlled with the potential of getting off one or more of your medications. So there are many advantages for a glaucoma patient to consider the MIGS options.
Ike K. Ahmed, MD:
When MIGS came through and some of these devices came to being, my thought was we need something that defines these devices beyond traditional surgery. Something that would help us as clinicians and help patients to understand the difference between these newer devices and perhaps some of the older traditional options.
I felt that an acronym MIGS, minimally basal glaucoma surgery would be appropriate. I very quickly realized that, of course, in ophthalmology we work at such a micro scale that it would be more appropriate perhaps to coin the term microinvasive glaucoma surgery. Some of the devices we use are one 10th of a millimeter in size, one or two width of our hair in terms of diameter, so truly is microinvasive. And invasive isn’t just incision size. It’s basically minimal disruption to normal anatomy and functioning of the eye.
William J Link, PhD:
Well, the impact that MIGS as a category is having and will have is that many hundreds of thousands to be millions of patients are benefiting from this elegant new surgical therapeutic step.
L Jay Katz, MD:
MIGS has introduced a number of operations now that are a bridge between medications and laser trabeculoplasty for open-end glaucoma, and then bridging that gap, which we have for filtering surgery, like trabeculectomy and tube shunt. There was nothing in that void before, and it’s offered us the opportunity to have procedures that are effective in lowering intraocular pressure, but with a very high safety margin.
Malik Y. Kahook, MD:
Traditionally, MIGS has been focused on the mild to moderate glaucoma combined with cataract surgery. What you’re seeing right now is a big explosion in the research that’s being done for standalone procedures.
Thomas W Burns:
I believe that an injectable, surgical alternative can change the paradigm. I further believe that the combination of restoring physiologic outflow within the eye and using pharmaceutical mechanisms in a combined or co-management basis, what I call cocktail therapy, will be standard of care in the future.
Malik Y. Kahook, MD:
We’re all striving to get to the best possible outcome. That takes time, that takes dedication, it takes research, and most of all, it takes innovation. Translational research, finding out what works in the laboratory, taking it into early studies, and then hopefully bringing it to market so as many people can benefit as possible.
-End transcript.-
