EyeWorld Asia-Pacific December 2014 Issue

56 EWAP NEWS & OPINION December 2014 stroma. Gently try to inject air in between the Descemet’s membrane and Dua’s layer, she said. This will create a type-1 bubble, and you take a knife and go inside, Dr. Agarwal said. After staining, cut the graft, she said. A DMEK graft is very fragile and difficult to handle. But in PDEK, Dr. Agarwal said, it’s easy to handle because you have additional microns. “And it gives more strength to the patient’s eye,” she said. Additionally, an advantage of PDEK is that younger donors can be used. “If you want to take a graft for DMEK and DSEK, you have to use old donors,” she said. With PDEK and young donors, tissue handling is easier. Dr. Agarwal showed a video of using a PDEK graft. She loaded the graft into an injector and slowly injected it into the anterior chamber. The beauty of the graft is it is 25 to 30 microns thick because there is an additional layer, she said. After injecting it, roll the graft and center it. “Air has to be constantly injected inside the eye,” Dr. Agarwal said. After the PDEK graft, post-operative results were extremely good, she said. After just one day, the cornea was clear and OCT was also good. Dr. Agarwal noted that handling Dua’s layer does require some practice. You have to learn how deep you have to go using the 30-gauge needle, she said, and it’s important to practice how to inject air to create a type-1 bubble. Day 2: Friday, 14 November 2014 APACRS opens with lamp lighting and Arthur Lim tribute The APACRS opening ceremony began with a welcome from the local host, Abhay Vasavada, MD , Ahmedabad, India. “Welcome to Jaipur, the jewel in the crown of India, for this 27th APACRS annual meeting,” he said. Dr. Vasavada expressed his pleasure to host the delegates, faculty, and trade partners on behalf of APACRS. There is a stellar faculty and involvement of cataract and refractive societies around the planet, and we will surely be able to take home useful jewels from the meeting, he said. Next, Graham Barrett, MD , Perth, Australia, the president of the APACRS, gave his welcome address, beginning with his pathway through APACRS. This started when he had a chance to meet Arthur S.M. Lim, MD , for the first time. Prof. Lim was a very special individual who shared the idea of establishing a society that would travel through Asia and hold annual meetings and use these meetings to develop a network of colleagues to share information and transfer skills, Dr. Barrett said. “Eventually, this dream of his became a reality as we established the society in many different countries in our region.” Dr. Barrett’s journey in APACRS was also significantly impacted in 1996 when he was asked by Prof. Lim to take over the leadership of the organization. Dr. Barrett said that his own dream for APACRS is for the organization to become a representative of equal stature in the region as other societies like ASCRS, ESCRS, and LASCRS around the world. He believes that this goal has been achieved and has only happened by the energy, enthusiasm and creativity of all the ophthalmologists and surgeons who participate in the APACRS meeting. Not only does India continue the tradition, Dr. Barrett said, but it excels in this field in so many areas. “When I think back on the various meetings, it’s not necessarily the lectures I remember, but the friendships,” he said. All this would not have begun without the vision of founder Arthur Lim, he said. “Everything he did was done with enthusiasm and joy,” Dr. Barrett said, expressing his hope that the society will be able to keep Prof. Lim’s spirit in the continued activities of APACRS. Following Dr. Barrett’s address, 1 minute of silence was held in tribute to the late Prof. Arthur Lim. Certificates of appreciation were presented to the local organizing committee, including P.K. Mathur, MD , Jaipur, India, the local organizing co-chairman, S. Natarajan, MD , Mumbai, India, the local organizing co-chairman, Pavan Shorey, MD , Goa, India, the local organizing secretary, and Virendra Agrawal, MD , Jaipur, India, the local organizing secretary. Representatives of regional and national societies involved with the meeting were then called on stage to participate in a lamp lighting ceremony. Societies represented included the Chinese Cataract Society (CCS), Indonesian Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery (ISCRS), Intraocular Implant and Refractive Society, India (IIRSI), Korean Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery (KSCRS), Philippine Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery (PSCRS), The Jewels - from page 55