Dr. Kim discusses highlights from the ASRS 2024 Annual Meeting: new treatments, advancements, and more
Judy Kim, MD, professor of ophthalmology, Jean and Tom Walter endowed distinguished chair in ophthalmology at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas, and ASRS Foundation president, talks about the 2024 American Society of Retina Specialists (ASRS) Annual Meeting that took place in July 2024. She offered her insights into the latest trends in diabetic retinopathy and diabetic macular edema.
Hear Dr. Kim talk about the importance of elevating rising stars in the field.
Question:
What are some trends in diabetic retinopathy and diabetic macular edema that are important to highlight from the meeting?
Judy E. Kim, MD:
There were many great papers presented at the recent ASRS meeting on clinically relevant topics, not only in DME and DR, but also AMD, geographic atrophy, retinal vascular occlusion, inherited retinal degeneration, etc. Also not only medical treatments, but also fantastic videos at this meeting. As for treatment and surgery for DME and diabetic retinopathy, I believe our field is really fortunate to have newer agents that we discussed as well as even newer agents that are currently being investigated in phase 1, phase 2 trials, including the ones that have new mode of action besides just anti-VEGF as well as possibly combination therapies, as well as new drug delivery devices, and also other older drug delivery devices that we have known about but was taken away. Such as port delivery system is now improved and is making a comeback for treatment of diabetic macular edema and diabetic retinopathy and may provide longer durability as well as efficacy than what we currently have as well.
I’m also excited about other areas that we learn from, not only just in an ocular manner, but also artificial intelligence that will be helping us to know which patients might respond best. Also a newer imaging modality such as home OCT that may be approved for age-related macular degeneration, but maybe in the future be used for our patients with diabetic macular edema and diabetic retinopathy as well. It’s really exciting not only medical treatment, but also newer surgical management as well as new drug devices, new imaging modalities such as ultra-wide fields imaging, and what we can gather from them as well as combining with artificial intelligence.
Question:
After attending this year’s meeting, what were the biggest highlights in the retina space?
Judy E. Kim, MD:
It was a packed meeting with a lot of things happening at every session, so it’s really hard to pinpoint to a specific one because I was excited about a lot of things. I would say overarching view of the theme was new drugs that either are in the pipeline or are recently approved and we’re learning more about it as well as new drug delivery modalities, such as use of suprachoroidal delivery, optogenetics gene therapy, encapsulated cell therapy even. Different ways of delivering drugs that might have greater potency, safety, as well as durability. There are studies that are coming out, or they are ongoing such as the use of steroids for diabetic macular edema has been around. But we may have more definitive studies that tell us how to use it best and perhaps in combination with others as well. Gene therapy updates were really exciting as well.
We’re learning about new vectors and how to manage inflammation, how to provide this gene therapy that could be perhaps one-and-done, long-term expression of cells and agents. Drugs that may allow us to use this safely with longer durability and also possibly in the office rather than delivering in the operating room. I think these are really amazing. Encapsulated cell therapy was really exciting too because now this is approved for treatment of macular telangiectasia that we didn’t have any treatment for. Last year we had all these drugs for geographic atrophy, another disease that we didn’t have any treatment for. But now this year we’re talking about macular telangiectasia, a disease that we did not have any management previously, but seems like this drug holds promise in slowing down the worsening. We are also learning about the geographic atrophy management, how to do it better, in whom we can use it, and how to manage potential side effects of these drugs.
We’re learning a lot more. Finally, as a person who is really interested in the new imaging biomarkers for various diseases, AMD, geographic atrophy, diabetic macular edema, RVO, and other diseases, inherited retinal degeneration, etc. I think if we could see and study these, we’ll be able to treat our patients better and be able to have an informed discussion with our patients better. I’m really excited about what we discussed at the meeting. The incorporation of artificial intelligence, not only with the patient’s images, but also how it might help us in the clinic such as virtual scribes were discussed at the Business of Retina, and how we can provide our patients more efficiently and safely. These are all very exciting.
