Surgical excision of subfoveal neovascular membranes yields different functional results depending on the underlying disease. Severe alteration of the retinal pigment epithelium-Bruch's membrane complex may be responsible for the poor visual outcomes in AMD.

The natural history of subfoveal neovascularization in high myopia is rarely visually restorative. By contrast, surgical excision of the membranes is feasible and may restore visual acuity in selected patients. This therapeutic approach merits a formal multicenter clinical trial.

PURPOSE: To assess a new method for decreasing corneal ablated surface irregularities after photorefractive keratectomy (PRK) and laser in situ keratomileusis (LASIK) by performing a final smoothing immediately after the treatment. METHODS: One hundred forty-seven eyes with ablation irregularities after PRK or LASIK using the Nidek EC-5000 excimer laser and examined with the Nidek EAS 1000, were randomized into two groups: 74 eyes had final smoothing and 73 eyes were patched immediately. Preoperative mean refraction for the smoothing group was -7.55 ± 250 D and for the patched group, it was -7.30 ± 1.90 D, (p = 0.04). RESULTS: At 12 months after treatment, mean haze was 0.5 ± 0.3 in the smoothing group and 1.2 ± 0.4 in the patched group (p = 0.006); mean spectaclecorrected visual acuity was 1.1 ± 0.25 in the smoothing group and 0.95 ± 0.18 in the patched group (p = 0.02); the percentages of eyes within 1.00 D of the planned correction was 68% in the smoothing group and 33% in the patched group. CONCLUSION: Performing a final smoothing immediately after PRK or LASIK improves refractive and optical outcomes. [J Refract Surg 1998;14:S199-S203]

Fluorescein and ICG angiographic differences in the appearance of CNMs could depend on (a) the morphological structure and size of the CNM (b) its location within the chorioretinal layers and (c) different molecular characteristics of the dyes used.

Fetal therapies regularly result in iatrogenic preterm premature rupture of the fetal membranes (iPPROM), which is associated with preterm birth. Biomaterials that promote the healing of traumatized fetal membranes (FMs) may prevent iPPROM‐associated preterm births, addressing this unmet clinical need. Here, a fully defined synthetic poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) hydrogel is developed to study the healing functions of human amnion‐derived mesenchymal stromal cells (hAMCs) in 3D cultures. A pipeline to analyze extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins deposited by hAMCs in PEG hydrogels is established involving label‐free quantification of mass‐spectrometry data. Owing to the contaminant‐free PEG hydrogels and a short fetal bovine serum (FBS)‐free culture period, 128 ECM proteins, of which 97 are present in the native amnion, are identified. Upon stimulation with platelet‐derived growth factor BB (PDGF‐BB), a cell proliferation and migration inducing factor, hAMCs remodel their surroundings and deposit ECM proteins pericellularly. Among the most abundantly deposited amnion proteins, transforming growth factor β‐induced protein ig‐h3 (TGFβi), a very distinctive amnion protein that is involved in the wound healing cascade, is identified. These data support the potential of PDGF‐BB to promote the repair of traumatized FMs and encourage its use for the engineering of biomaterials for FM healing, to ultimately prevent iPPROM.