Ophthalmology

A staggering 2.2 billion people worldwide suffer from some kind of eye condition. Of these, 1 billion have a vision impairment that could have been prevented or is yet to be addressed.

As a matter of fact, despite the availability of WHO information on the magnitude and causes of blindness and strategies for their prevention, policy-makers and health providers in some countries are evidently not fully aware of available eye-care interventions, their cost–effectiveness and their potential to prevent or treat the 80% of global blindness that is avoidable. As a consequence millions of people remain at risk of visual loss due to the lack of eye-care services.

With almost 90% of blind and visually impaired people living in low- and middle-income countries, including some of the world’s poorest communities, access to eye care is often limited or unavailable. From all visually impaired people around the globe, 19 million alone are children below the age of 15 years. Most of the world’s blind children live in the poorest regions of Africa and Asia. Visual impairment in children is a severe public health, social, and economic problem worldwide. Moreover, as reported by Lancet Glob Health 2017, there is an ongoing reduction in the age-standardised prevalence of blindness and visual impairment, yet the growth and ageing of the world’s population is causing a substantial increase in number of people affected. These observations, plus a very large contribution from uncorrected presbyopia, highlight the need to scale up vision impairment alleviation efforts at all levels.

For all these reasons, global and regional prevalence estimates for blindness and vision impairment are important for the development of public health policies.

Globally, the leading causes of vision impairment are:

  • uncorrected refractive errors
  • cataract
  • age-related macular degeneration
  • glaucoma
  • diabetic retinopathy
  • corneal opacity
  • trachoma

There is some variation in the causes across countries. For example, the proportion of vision impairment attributable to cataract is higher in low- and middle-income countries than high-income countries. In high income countries, diseases such as diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma and age-related macular degeneration are more common.

Among children, the causes of vision impairment vary considerably across countries. For example, in low-income countries congenital cataract is a leading cause, whereas in high income countries it is more likely to be retinopathy of prematurity.

OPIS has managed 58 studies in ophthalmology across a wide range of indications and with various kind of treatments.

OPIS experience in ophthalmology covers all phases of clinical development (I-IV), and has been gained through trials involving drugs, medical devices and food supplements.

Solutions

  • Our global investigator network of eye diseases specialists enables us to identify the highest performing clinical sites and access to more patients meeting enrolment expectations, especially in case of seasonal diseases.
    The strong relationship with investigator and regulatory experts, as well as our therapeutic experience and knowledge of disease prevalence and incidence, ensure an efficient and strategic execution of infectious disease clinical trials.
  • OPIS Medical Affairs Department provides protocol development consulting to ensure well-planned and efficiently conducted ophthalmology clinical trials.
  • Broad experience designing and conducting phase I-IV clinical trials in ophthalmology.
  • Experience with pediatric populations.

Case Study

Post-cataract surgery inflammation/infection

An international, multicenter, randomized, parallel group Phase III clinical study, to investigate possible treatments for the prevention and possible treatment of inflammation and prevention associated with cataract surgery in adults.

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