UPCOMING EVENTS
COPE ACCREDITED VIRTUAL CE COURSES ARE BACK IN ACTION!
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OPHTHALMIC SURGERY GRAND GROUNDS (OSxGR) |
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CLINICAL TRIALS OF EMERGING THERAPIES FOR RETINAL DEGENERATION PATIENTS |
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Mon, April 5, 2021
5-6 PM MST
Accreditation: 1 Hour of COPE CE Credit + 1 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™
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The Foundation Fighting Blindness, the world’s leading private funding source for retinal degenerative disease research, is hosting a virtual COPE CE/CME accredited course on Monday, April 5, 2021, at 5:00pm MST, open to all patients, eye care providers and their support staff.
Colorado Retina’s President and Managing Physician Alan Kimura, MD, MPH, will discuss clinical trials for emerging retinal degenerative disease therapies that are currently underway. These studies are essential for patients with Inherited Retinal Diseases such as: retinitis pigmentosa, Stargardt disease, and AMD, providing patient the opportunity to participate in innovative, off-market treatment opportunities. Join us and gain insight about the clinical trial process and patient experience and expectations from the perspective of the investigator, Dr. Kimura.
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DID YOU MISS CRA'S 2021
MILE HIGH MASTERS OF RETINA?
YOU CAN NOW WATCH THE
PRE-RECORDED MEETING >>>
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Colorado Retina's 2021 Mile High Masters of Retina program looked a bit different than what you've seen from the meeting over the past decade. Due to the pandemic, we took to a virtual platform, shorted the program into a 2.25 hour time block, and condensed the format into one keynote speaker, Dr. Sunil Srivastava, and 8 rapid-fire mini-educational sessions, concluding with either an exciting live debate or interactive panel discussion. Each session was presented live by one of our 13 vitreoretinal specialists, and covered a vision-threatening retina, ocular tumor and/or uveitis disease state. Our physicians and keynote presented both common and complex ocular cases, surgical and clinical treatment options, risk factor reviews and variety of management techniques within retinal care.
To those who were able to attend our 2021 program, we thank you for tuning in, and hope you enjoyed the content. It has been our absolute pleasure to bring you this event for the past 11 years and counting! Please do send any meeting feedback to Colorado Retina's Marketing Manager, Kendall Johnson at kjohnson@retinacolorado.com. |
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PRACTICE UPDATES
WHAT'S NEW AT COLORADO RETINA ASSOCIATES
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WE ARE MOVING OUR GOLDEN-
RED ROCKS CLINIC & RESEARCH DEPT.
TO LAKEWOOD - APRIL 2021!
As a team, we have decided to MOVE our Golden-Red Rocks clinic and Clinical Research Department to one consolidated new space in Lakewood, CO. Our official last clinic/research day at the current Golden location will be on Tuesday, April 13th, 2021. We will start seeing patients at our new Lakewood location as of 8:00am on Tuesday, April 20th, 2021. If your patient requires to be seen on an urgent basis during our Golden closure, please call our triage line at (303) 261-1600 x1 to schedule at one of our other 4 Denver Metro service locations: East Denver/Lowry, Englewood, Lafayette or Parker, CO.
The new Colorado Retina Lakewood office is conveniently located just 3 miles south east of our, soon to be closed Golden clinic, off 6th Ave Freeway and Union Blvd. We will be located in St. Anthony Medical Plaza, inside Medical Building III, a brand-new medical facility. It offers the same range of services and resident physicians as our current Golden location. We are very excited to improve efficiency through hosting clinical research inside the same suite as our medical clinic. Ultimately, we see this move as an opportunity to improve patient satisfaction and experience through additional available appointment times (including more slots for same-day add-ons), shorter wait times, and services in a more modern, convenient and comfortable environment for your patients.
We apologize for any inconvenience and thank you for your continued referral support. Our years at Red Rocks Medical Center have been filled with many rewarding experiences and memorable patients. We look forward to continuing to serve you and your patients at our Lakewood location!
NEW LAKEWOOD ADDRESS - OPENS 4/21/21
St. Anthony Medical Plaza, Medical Building III
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INTRODUCING BETTY ZHANG, OD
CRA'S NEWEST OPTOMETRIST + REFERRAL LIAISON PROVIDING SAME-DAY CURBSIDE CONSULT SERVICES
We are excited to introduce Colorado Retina Associates first Optometrist, Betty Zhang! Many of you have relationships with individual CRA physicians wherein you share images and ask questions about potential retinal findings. We want to extend this consultation access to ALL of our referring providers. Dr. Zhang will act as a liaison within the optometry referral community to run our new same-day curbside consult service.
HOW IT WORKS: Dr. Zhang will be assisting our triage team as a liaison between your office provider(s) and the designated CRA on-call physician. She is available as a resource to assist in the review of patient clinical situations, diagnostic dilemmas, imaging and/or test results, or general questions from OD’s pertaining to vitreoretinal disease.
Avenues to Submit a Curbside Consult:
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TEXT or CALL. For the quickest response text Dr. Zhang cell at (785) 312-4682
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EMAIL. bzhang@retinacolorado.com
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WEBSITE. Submit a request on our HIPAA-secure Online form HERE.
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PHREESIA. CRA's newest shared referral dashboard (see below details).
* Whatever avenue you choose please provide a brief summary of your request, including patient symptoms and potential diagnosis if applicable, and attach any pertinent patient images or notes for Dr. Zhang to review. Once your request is submitted Dr. Zhang will get back to you within the same business day. Please note, this service is not to be used for emergency services, for an urgent referral that needs to be seen within 48 hours, please call our triage line ASAP at (303) 261-1600 x1 to schedule.
Our success depends on our ability to provide outstanding care for our patients and to meet the needs of their referring providers. We hope this newly added curbside consult service helps meet your referral needs through garnering candid, actionable feedback, while breaking down any gap in communication between our practice and yours. As this is a new service for our practice please do not be shy about sharing your feedback, it's a work in progress and we are always looking for ways to improve and better serve you.
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NEW!! SHARED REFERRAL DASHBOARD
QUICKLY & EASILY SEND REFERRALS TO COLORADO RETINA
Introducing Colorado Retina's new shared HIPAA-secure referral dashboard via Phreesia. Your team can easily submit new and track past referrals, attach and receive important patient documents, see live status updates on your referred patients, submit curbside consult requests and utilize a 1:1 chat feature to quickly communicate with one of Colorado Retina's scheduling representatives, all without ever faxing or picking up the phone! The dashboard tracks and manages all referrals in one place to ensure prompt follow-up and scheduling with your preferred CRA specialists. The result? Better referral completion rates, reduced staff workload, complete transparency into our scheduling process, and better continuity of care for your patients.
This service is offered complimentary to all our referring offices. To learn more about the benefits of a shared referral dashboard, please watch the short video below or contact Kendall Johnson at kjohnson@retinacolorado.com.
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CASE OF THE MONTH
REAL CASES OF YOUR REFERRED PATIENTS
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POSSIBLE BRANCH RETINAL VEIN OCCLUSION
CURTIS HAGEDORN, MD
78 year old woman with DM and HTN referred for a possible branch retinal vein occlusion OS. Patient was asymptomatic, and her condition was identified during a routine annual exam with her comprehensive ophthalmologist. Patient was 20/20 OU with correction. OU: moderate NS, hypertensive changes of retinal vessels.
OS photos below:
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DDX:
- BRVO
- CNV
- VH related to PVD or NV from PDR or BRVO
Hemorrhage was actually pre-retinal, so not CNV. No IRH, so RVO was unlikely.
Fluorescein angiography revealed good blood flow, no occlusion, and no occult diabetic retinopathy...
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DIAGNOSIS: Partial Posterior Vitreous Detachment (PVD) with localized VH related to vitreoretinal traction.
PVD is an event which happens to everyone eventually. If one is a high myope, has had surgery on the eye, trauma to the eye, or inflammation in the eye, it can happen a little sooner. Sometimes a PVD is associated with flashes (retinal traction) and/or floaters (vitreous condensations or blood). If a patient gets a dark curtain in the vision, then concern about retinal detachment is heightened. While a hemorrhagic PVD has about an 85% chance for existence of a tear, this case was tear-free. This case is one of “sticky” vitreous, where the evolving PVD is causing some vitreoretinal traction in the posterior pole and tight adherence to the optic nerve area has caused a mild vessel rupture and localized vitreous hemorrhage. Vitreous is most tightly adherent in areas where the internal limiting membrane is thinnest; vitreous base, optic nerve head, fovea, and along major retinal vessels. Other areas of tight vitreous adherence include areas of lattice and some chorioretinal scars, and at meridional complexes and cystic tufts.
In this patient, since the source of vitreous hemorrhage has been identified (peripapillary vessels) we can do our usual symptomatic PVD followup of 4-6 weeks. If the source of hemorrhage cannot be readily identified, then closer followup is indicated to keep a close eye out for tears. Completion of PVD usually takes about 2-4 weeks, and we want to re-evaluate the patient at the end of the event. We encouraged this patient to call immediately if she should experience any new flashes, large bursts of floaters, or a dark curtain in vision.
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FEATURED NEWS ARTICLES
PRESS RELEASES & RESOURCES FROM OUR VITREORETINAL SPECIALISTS
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A OPHTHALMOLOGY RESIDENT'S GUIDE TO VITRECTOMY FOR FLOATERS
BRIAN JOONDEPH, MD, MPS
Everyone has vitreous floaters, to some degree. For most people, floaters are a minor annoyance, occasionally noticeable when looking at a light-colored background, as in a white wall, freshly fallen snow, or the sky. These floaters move as the eye moves and if you try to look at them directly, they move away just as you attempt to fixate on them, always visible but just out of reach.
For some patients, floaters can be a major nuisance, popping into the central visual field at inopportune times, as in when reading or driving. When driving or during another potentially dangerous activity, such a distraction or visual obscuration at the wrong moment can lead to an accident, or worse.
In this article Dr. Brian Joondeph, physician at Colorado Retina, will review the issues he thinks about when evaluating a patient considering vitrectomy surgery for floaters, and address the pertinent issues to discuss with patients to assist them in making an informed decision for or against surgery.
Featured Information:
- Pathophysiology of vitreous floaters
- How to decide on surgery
- Expectations: surgical side effects & complications, including cataract progression
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Seen in: Eyes On Eyecare. All rights reserved. February 19, 2021.
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CLINICAL RESEARCH
UPCOMING AND ACTIVE FDA-APPROVED CLINICAL RESEARCH TRIALS
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Our in-house clinical research department is currently enrolling trials in the therapeutic areas of diabetic edema and retinopathy, wet and dry macular degeneration and uveitis AND we're involved in cutting-edge genetic therapies! |
IVERIC
Geographic Atrophy Therapy Trial
Colorado Retina's Clinical Research Department is currently enrolling for Iveric Bio's phase 3 GATHER2 clinical trial, meant to manage geographic atrophy (GA). In this trial patients will be randomized to receive either monthly administration of Zimura or sham injection during the first 12 months of the trial, at which time the primary efficacy analysis of the mean rate of geographic atrophy growth at 12 months will be performed.
Zimura, a complement factor C5 is a central component of the complement cascade and is believed to be involved in the development and progression of age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Zimura is designed to inhibit the formation of complement C5 terminal fragments, hopefully decreasing the activation of inflammasomes and the formation of membrane attack complex (MAC). This mechanism of action could potentially prevent or slow down the degeneration of retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells and ultimately slow down the progression of geographic atrophy.
We are hopeful in this treatment option, as the GATHER1 trial proved Zimura met the pre-specified primary efficacy endpoint with statistical significance and was generally well tolerated by trial participants after 18 months of administration. If the prespecified 12-month results from GATHER2 are positive, Iveric Bio plans to file applications with the results from GATHER1 and GATHER2 to the U.S. FDA for marketing approval of Zimura for GA.
If you have a patient you believe meets the below eligibility criteria, please contact CRA's research department for more information.
Inclusion Criteria:
- Subjects of either gender aged ≥ 50 years
- Diagnosis of Non-foveal GA secondary to dry AMD
Exclusion Criteria:
- Any prior treatment for AMD (dry or wet) or any prior intravitreal treatment for any indication in either eye, except oral supplements of vitamins and minerals
- Any intraocular surgery or thermal laser within 3 months of trial entry.
- Any prior thermal laser in the macular region, regardless of indication
- Any ocular or periocular infection (including blepharitis), or ocular surface inflammation in the past 12 weeks.
- Previous therapeutic radiation in the region of the study eye
- Any sign of diabetic retinopathy in either eye
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Please contact Colorado Retina's Research Department for more information about screening, eligibility or clinical research related questions.
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COLORADO RETINA ASSOCIATES, P.C.
MAIN PHONE: (303) 261-1600
FAX: (303) 261-1601
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