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WCO AND insights on what the WCO Standard of Care entails and how eye
COOPERVISION care professionals can incorporate it in their fight against the
worldwide myopia epidemic. The work is available at myopia.
RELEASE worldcouncilofoptometry.info/professional-article-english/
MYOPIA The World Council of Optometry and CooperVision partnered in
MANAGEMENT early 2021 to raise awareness of myopia progression and embrace
a standard of care to manage the condition. The joint initiative is
GUIDE centered around evidence-based approaches without bias toward
any management methodologies. The partnership includes a global
multi-lingual myopia management resource.
The World Council of
Optometry (WCO) and STEM CELL MODEL TO STUDY OCA
CooperVision have partnered
to release “A Practical Guide A research team has developed the first patient-derived stem
to Managing Children with cell model for studying eye conditions related to oculocutaneous
Myopia.” The professional article albinism (OCA). OCA is defined as a set of genetic conditions that
is authored by four experienced affects pigmentation in the eye, skin, and hair due to mutation in the
ocular health and science genes essential to melanin pigment production.
professionals from around
the world. “This ‘disease-in-a-dish’ system will help us understand how the
absence of pigment in albinism leads to abnormal development
The authors include of the retina, optic nerve fibers, and other eye structures crucial for
Dr Carmen Abesamis-Dichoso central vision,” said Aman George, Ph.D., a staff scientist in the NEI
of the Philippines, an Asia Ophthalmic Genetics and Visual Function Branch, and the lead
Pacific Council of Optometry author of the report. NEI is part of the National Institutes of Health.
representative for the WCO who
operates her private practice, “Animals used to study albinism are less than ideal because they
Abesamis Eye Care; Dr Rufina lack foveae,” said Brian P. Brooks, M.D., Ph.D., NEI clinical director and
Chan, who is a visiting lecturer chief of the Ophthalmic Genetics and Visual Function Branch. “A
at the Hong Kong Polytechnic human stem cell model that mimics the disease is an important
University School of Optometry step forward in understanding albinism and testing potential
and is in private practice; therapies to treat it.”
Dr Kate Gifford of Australia, who Researchers reprogrammed skin cells from persons without OCA
works in clinical practice and is and people with the two most common types of OCA (OCA1A and
co-founder of MyopiaProfile.com; OCA2) into pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) to make the model. The
and Dr Fuensanta Vera-Diaz of iPSCs were then differentiated to the retinal pigment epithelium
Boston, who serves as a reviewer (RPE) cells. The researchers found that the RPE cells from OCA
for multiple journals patients were identical to RPE cells from unaffected individuals but
and leads the New England showed noticeably reduced pigmentation.
College of Optometry’s Myopia
Control Clinic. The study team will use this model to study how lack of
pigmentation affects RPE physiology and function. “In theory, if fovea
The article complements the development is dependent on RPE pigmentation, and pigmentation
WCO Standard of Care for Myopia can be somehow improved, vision defects associated with abnormal
Management by Optometrists fovea development could be at least partially resolved,” says Brooks.
Resolution, which embraces
evidence-based approaches “Treating albinism at a very young age, perhaps even prenatally,
focused on the three pillars of when the eye’s structures are forming, would have the greatest
mitigation, measurement, and chance of rescuing vision,” he adds.
management. The authors The model’s development was reported in the journal Stem
collaborated to share their Cell Reports.
14 THE INDIAN OPTICIAN MAY-JUNE 2022 OPTOMETRY NEWS
