A Summary Of The London Vision Clinic’s Research Activity In 2009

Hello! I’m Tim Archer, the Research Manager for the London Vision Clinic. I was recently asked to summarise what the research team has been doing over the past year and we thought it might make a nice guest blog post as well. 

Many people are surprised to hear that the clinic conducts ongoing research, in addition to treating patients. In fact, one of the main reasons we can achieve the results we do, is because we’re constantly evaluating them, and submitting them to peer-reviewed journal panels for inclusion in scientific journals.

A sample of the ophthalmic journals in which we published papers in 2009:

•    Journal of Refractive Surgery •    Journal of Cataract and Refractive Surgery •    Ophthalmology •    Investigations in Ophthalmic Visual Science •    British Journal of Ophthalmology •    Current Opinions in Ophthalmology •    American Journal of Ophthalmology •    Cornea •    Optometric Visual Science •    Survey of Ophthalmology

Even more surprising can be the amount of research output we actually produce at the London Vision Clinic. In 2009, the research team published 16 peer-reviewed papers. To put that in context, the most prolific author in entire field of ophthalmology (of which refractive surgery is only a sub-speciality) published a total of 39 papers.

Usually, multiple authors working in collaboration write scientific papers with the first author usually spearheading the effort. In 2009, Professor Reinstein was the most published first author in the entire field of ophthalmology with 15 published papers.

Of course, the quantity of published papers is only one dimension when measuring research output. Another, arguably more important dimension, is the quality of the research produced. Last year we wrote about many subjects, including the following highlights which I’ll discuss in some future posts:

•    Keratoconus screening •    PRESBYOND® Laser Blended Vision •    Standardisation of graphs used in refractive surgery

And lastly, here are some papers in the writing for 2010:

•    A book chapter on Artemis Insight 100 technology •    A book chapter on presbyopic profiles •    A Hansatome flap profile •    Case reports of complex patients treated using Artemis Insight 100 technology •    Case report of ulcerative keratitis •    An Anterior Segment Review Paper •    Longitudinal epithelial thickness changes post-myopic LASIK •    ORA study: normative pre-op data

As I’m sure you’ll agree, we have a busy, busy year ahead of us. I hope to update our blog readers every quarter with an update on  our research activities.