Vol 11, No 4 (2016)

Objective. To monitor congenital glaucoma and to determine the proportion of the exposed stage of the disease revealed during the initial examination and the long-term follow up. Materials and methods. The present study included 27 children (47 eyes) at the age ranging from 8 to 17 years presenting with various forms of compensated congenital glaucoma at the initial, advanced, and terminal stages of the disease. Results. The clinical and functional characteristics of the eyes at each stage of congenital glaucoma were analyzed during the initial examination and the long-term follow-up period. It was found that the currently universally accepted classification of congenital glaucoma that subdivides the disease into stages based on the structural anatomical changes in the eyes ceases to adequately reflect the objective state of the visual system as the child grows. Conclusion. The study has demonstrated that the stage of congenital glaucoma needs to be corrected in accordance with the age and growth of the child and the possibility of its examination with the use of the psychophysical methods and the evaluation of visual acuity.

Objective. To evaluate the immediate and long-term biological and functional results of reconstructive penetrating keratoplasty (RPKP) in the children. Materials and methods. We undertook a comparative analysis of the outcomes of 86 cases of the surgical intervention on 74 children presenting with corneal opacities of different etiology who had been treated with the application of reconstructive penetrating keratoplasty based at the Department of Eye Pathology in Children, The Helmholtz Moscow Research Institute of Eye Diseases. All operations were made by the same surgeon during the period from 2008 to 2014. The results of reconstructive penetrating keratoplasty were compared with the outcomes of conventional penetrating keratoplasty. The biological results were evaluated in terms of the graft survival (Kaplan-Meir’s) model. The duration of the postoperative follow-up period ranged from 5 months to 8 years and averaged 20,8 ± 9,7 months in the children treated with the use of reconstructive penetrating keratoplasty and to 3,0 ± 15,4 months in the patients treated by means of conventional penetrating keratoplasty. Results. During the early postoperative period (within 1 and 6 months after surgery), the difference in the graft survival rate between the two groups was practically non-existent. After 1 month, the transparency of the transplanted cornea was fairly well preserved in the children of both groups, but persisted for 6 months only in 72% and 95% of the patients treated by reconstructive and conventional penetrating keratoplasty respectively. One year after surgery, the graft survival in the children treated with the use of reconstructive penetrating keratoplasty was documented in 54% of the cases in comparison with 78% in the patients treated by means of conventional penetrating keratoplasty. The difference between the two groups was statistically significant (p < 0,05). Two and three years after surgery, the transparency of the transplanted cornea in the children treated with the use of reconstructive penetrating keratoplasty fell down to 50% and 20% respectively. During the same periods, the transparency of the transplanted cornea in the children treated by means of conventional penetrating keratoplasty remained as high as 76% and 62% respectively. Conclusion. Although the combination of penetrating keratoplasty with other surgical modalities results in the almost three-fold reduction of the probability of engraftment of the transparent corneal transplant in the remote postoperative period in comparison with the standard implantation of the donor cornea transplant, this operation provides the only possibility for the restoration of vision in the children suffering from severe corneal pathology.

Conjunctivitis and dacryocystitis are the most frequent eye diseases in the children, especially in those of the early age. The approaches to its treatment are characterized by a number of peculiarities. Conjunctivitis is most often treated with the use of local medications (including antibacterial, antiviral, and anti-allergic preparations) depending on the etiology of the disease. The modern strategy of antibacterial therapy of conjunctivitis is based on the application of the new antibiotic agents of the quinolone class to which only a small number of the strains of microorganisms exhibit resistance. To enhance the action of such pharmaceutical products, their accelerated administration is required together with the use of long-acting eye medicines and medications possessed of the combined action. The principal treatment modality for the management of dacryocystitis is the surgical restoration of the patency of the lacrimal drainage system by the probing of the lacrimal ducts in the combination with the local antibiotic treatment for the elimination of the inflammatory process in the lacrimal sac and sanation of the entire lacrimal drainage system. The local antibacterial therapy should be prescribed taking into consideration the shifts in the epidemiological spectrum of the bacterial ophthalmic infections in the children that have been documented during the recent years, in the first place the rise in the occurrence of resistant strains associated with the tendency toward the prevalence of the Gram-negative pathogens.

Laser photocoagulation of avascular retina remains the standard method for the treatment of retinopathy of prematurity (RP). At the same time, the outcomes of combined multi-stage surgical interventions on the patients presenting with this condition leave much to be desired. In the present review, we have undertaken the analysis of more than 50 articles related to the use of antibodies against the vascular endothelial growth factor (Anti-VEGF) that were published during the period from 2005 to 2015; the analysis included the use of the “off-label” medications as the potentially promising method for the treatment of retinopathy of prematurity. In the overwhelming majority of the studies, the use of anti-VEGF therapy as monotherapy or in the combination with conventional laser photocoagulation has been shown to be efficient for the treatment of stage III+ of the active period of retinopathy of prematurity. One of the important advantages of monotherapy is it does not cause the irreversible destruction of the peripheral retina, in contrast to the action of laser photocoagulation. Moreover, the intravitreal administration of the inhibitors of angiogenesis does not interfere with the growth of blood vessels in the peripheral retina as demonstrated by fluorescein angiography and electroretinography. At the same time, the results of certain published investigations give evidence of the important role played by the vascular endothelial growth factor in the processes of angiogenesis, glomerulogenesis, and alveolarization during the normal lung development. In addition, it has been demonstrated that bevacizumab can migrate from the vitreous body and penetrate into the systemic circulation where it causes the reduction of the serum VEGF levels in the infants presenting with retinopathy of prematurity. In connection with this, the majority of the authors emphasize the necessity of further investigations (based on the results of monitoring the concentration of serum VEGF) for the evaluation of the safety of such medications, their potential long-term effects on other organs and systems in the course of their development as well as possible adverse reactions they are likely to induce. Some problems related to the timing and dosage of the intravitreal administration of the inhibitors of angiogenesis remain a matter of controversy.