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Purpose: To bring awareness on how the false eyelash beauty trend can impact routine glaucoma evaluations. Observation: False eyelashes have the ability to induce pseudoptosis and visual disturbance complaints from patients. This translates to the patient care setting by inhibiting proper administration of Humphrey Visual Field analysis and portraying gross overestimations on patients’ glaucoma progression. Conclusions: Patients should be asked to remove false eyelashes prior to administering Humphrey Visual Field analysis or have their eyelids taped up to prevent obstruction of view during examination. Importance: Making medical management decisions based on a Humphrey Visual Field analysis completed on a patient wearing false eyelashes could lead to overly aggressive treatment on an otherwise healthy patient.

Abstract This is a cross-sectional exploratory analysis of publicly available Internet data to examine compliance to web content accessibility guidelines (WCAG) on patient education social media posts in ophthalmology. WCAG ensures web content accessibility for those with disabilities (including visual impairment). A total of 100 social media posts were sampled from ten ophthalmology patient education social media pages and ten non-ophthalmology (cardiopulmonary) pages as the comparison group. Three independent graders evaluated the selected posts based on the WCAG 2 checklist by WebAIM, a non-profit affiliated with Utah State University, after its adaptation for social media posts. Validated accessibility standard labels: “0” for not meeting any standards, “1” or “A” for meeting bare minimum accessibility requirements, “2” or “AA” for meeting legal accessibility requirements, or “3” or “AAA” for exceeding accessibility requirements. There was not enough evidence to detect a difference in WCAG scores between ophthalmology and non-ophthalmology posts (p = 0.80). Forty-nine percent of scores for ophthalmology social media posts showed no compliance with any WCAG. The most common reasons that ophthalmology posts failed to meet criteria were due to color and contrast issues (39%). Most ophthalmology social media posts had low WCAG scores, indicating poor compliance to WCAG. Because social media is highly visual, reduced compliance to WCAG may create barriers for low vision individuals to successfully access patient education social media content.

Purpose. This study investigated the effect of interview format changes (in-person to virtual, one-to-one to multiple-to-one) necessitated by the COVID-19 travel restrictions on preliminary fellowship candidate ranking variabilities. Design. Cross-sectional observational study. Method. In 2018 and 2019, the glaucoma fellowship interviews were conducted in-person in a one-to-one format, whereas in 2020, interviews were virtual and in a multiple (interviewers)-to-one (candidate) format. We compared ranking ranges of interviewers within the same virtual room (WSR) and not within the same virtual room (NWSR) to assess the effect of WSR versus NWSR on ranking variabilities. We also compared ranking categories (“accept,” “alternate,” and “pass”) agreements between 2018, 2019, and 2020 to assess the effect of virtual versus in-person interviews on ranking variabilities. Results. NWSR and WSR mean rankings differed by 1.33 (95% confidence interval difference 0.61 to 2.04, p = 0.0003), with WSR interviewers having less variability than NWSR pairs. The variability between 2018/2019 (in-person interviews) and 2020 (virtual interviews) showed no differences between in-person and virtual interviews (weighted Kappa statistic 0.086 for 2018, 0.158 for 2019, and 0.101 for 2020; p

Purpose: To review standard management of blind painful and non-painful eyes at risk for neovascular glaucoma, and report the management strategies of four cases. Method: Series of cases and literature review. Patients: The first two cases described are blind, painful eyes secondary to neovascular glaucoma, treated with intracameral bevacizumab injections. The third case, a blind, painful eye with uncontrolled glaucoma in a patient unsatisfied with her eye appearance due to white retained lens material at pupillary margin and a large prominent bleb, was treated with a combination of bleb revision, vitrectomy, lensectomy and endocyclophotocoagulation. The fourth case, a blind, non-painful eye with secondary radiation retinopathy at risk for neovascular glaucoma was treated with laser photocoagulation to prevent neovascular glaucoma and pain. Results: The first two cases of blind, painful eyes with neovascular glaucoma had reduction in neovascularization and pain after intracameral bevacizumab injections and/or laser therapy. The third case had resolution of pain and transient decrease in intraocular pressure after a combined surgery. The blind, non-painful eye in case 4 with a history of radiation retinopathy had stable intraocular pressure and no progression to neovascular glaucoma or pain. None of the four cases progressed to enucleation or evisceration. Discussion/Conclusion: Retinal interventional management should be considered in blind painful and non-painful eyes to help control symptoms, treat or prevent progression to neovascular glaucoma and prevention of enucleation or evisceration.

Purpose: To compare choroidal thickness (CT) between individuals with and without glaucomatous damage and to explore the association of peripapillary and submacular CT with glaucoma severity using spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT). Methods: Ninety-one eyes of 20 normal subjects and 43 glaucoma patients from the UCLA SD-OCT Imaging Study were enrolled. Imaging was performed using Cirrus HDOCT. Choroidal thickness was measured at four predetermined points in the macular and peripapillary regions, and compared between glaucoma and control groups before and after adjusting for potential confounding variables. Results: The average (± standard deviation) mean deviation (MD) on visual fields was −0.3 (±2.0) dB in controls and −3.5 (±3.5) dB in glaucoma patients. Age, axial length and their interaction were the most significant factors affecting CT on multivariate analysis. Adjusted average CT (corrected for age, axial length, their interaction, gender and lens status) however, was not different between glaucoma patients and the control group (P=0.083) except in the temporal parafoveal region (P=0.037); nor was choroidal thickness related to glaucoma severity (r=−0.187, P=0.176 for correlation with MD, r=−0.151, P=0.275 for correlation with average nerve fiber layer thickness). Conclusions: Choroidal thickness of the macular and peripapillary regions is not decreased in glaucoma. Anatomical measurements with SD-OCT do not support the possible influence of the choroid on the pathophysiology of glaucoma.