Ophthalmology
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The association between scholarly impact and National Institutes of Health funding in ophthalmology.
To examine whether there is an association between scholarly impact, as measured by the h-index, academic rank, and National Institutes of Health (NIH) awards in academic ophthalmology. ⋯ The h-index increases with increasing academic rank among NIH-funded and non-NIH-funded faculty in ophthalmology departments. This bibliometric is associated strongly with NIH funding because NIH-funded PIs had higher scholarly impact than their non-NIH-funded colleagues, and increasing impact was noted with higher funding. The h-index is an objective and easily calculable measure that may be valuable as an adjunct in assessing research productivity, a significant factor for academic promotion in academic ophthalmology.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study
The United Kingdom Glaucoma Treatment Study: a multicenter, randomized, double-masked, placebo-controlled trial: baseline characteristics.
The United Kingdom Glaucoma Treatment Study (UKGTS) tests the hypothesis that treatment with a topical prostaglandin analog, compared with placebo, reduces the frequency of visual field (VF) deterioration events in patients with open-angle glaucoma (OAG) by 50% over a 2-year period. Additional goals are to evaluate study power with novel clinical trial outcomes: (1) VF deterioration velocity and (2) VF and quantitative imaging measurements modeled as joint outcomes. ⋯ This is the first randomized, placebo-controlled trial to evaluate the efficacy of medical treatment in reducing VF deterioration in OAG. The baseline characteristics for eligible patients and eyes from this cohort are presented and compared with those of previous trials. The baseline characteristics are similar to those of the largely population-based Early Manifest Glaucoma Trial. The early stage of the glaucoma and relatively low IOP at diagnosis suggest remarkably sensitive case findings by community optometrists in the United Kingdom.
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Multicenter Study
Development of the functional vision questionnaire for children and young people with visual impairment: the FVQ_CYP.
To develop a novel age-appropriate measure of functional vision (FV) for self-reporting by visually impaired (VI) children and young people. ⋯ We have developed a novel, psychometrically robust self-report questionnaire for children and young people-the FVQ_CYP-that captures the functional impact of visual disability from their perspective. The 36-item, 4-point unidimensional scale has potential as a complementary adjunct to objective clinical assessments in routine pediatric ophthalmology practice and in research.
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To explore the cost-effectiveness of telemedicine for the screening of diabetic retinopathy (DR) and identify changes within the demographics of a patient population after telemedicine implementation. ⋯ The current teleretinal screening program is effective in terms of being cost-effective and increasing population reach. Future screening policies should give consideration to the age of patients receiving screenings and the system's patient pool size because our results indicate it is not cost-effective to screen patients aged older than 80 years or in populations with <3500 patients.