Retina China 2019, the largest retina meeting in China, was held February 21 – 23, 2019 in Shanghai. Approximately 4,000 ophthalmologists in the region were present as well as a handful of international guests. Professor Serge Resnikoff, Professor Padmaja Sankaridurg and Ms. Rebecca Weng from the Brien Holden Vision Institute attended the prestigious conference, at the invitation of Professor Xu Xun, President of the Chinese Ocular Fundus and Retina Society.
Professor Resnikoff and Professor Sankaridurg were invited speakers addressing the topics of myopia and high myopia and spoke on lessons learned from the global burden of myopia study, as well as myopic macular degeneration and temporal trends from 2000 to 2050.
Significant progress was also made on a number of the collaborative research activities that are currently underway between the Shanghai Eye Disease Prevention and Treatment Centre (SEDPTC) and the Brien Holden Vision Institute Limited.
The discussions that took place over the two days were intense and continued late into the evening, but provided direction for instituting community based interventions to target the rising prevalence of myopia in the region, said Professor Sankaridurg.
Since 2015, the SEDPTC and the Brien Holden Vision Institute Limited have collaborated in the investigation of the rapid increase in the prevalence of myopia and in the development of treatments to prevent the sight-threatening complications associated with high levels of the condition. These collaborative projects include the vision screening of one million school children and a large-scale clinical trial involving 6,000 children to determine if increased outdoor time can help control the onset of myopia.
A new myopia management tool for the profession, the Myopia Risk Calculator is also currently in development through the collaboration of the two entities.