Researchers are currently testing a vaccine that improves the chances of recovery of patients with ocular tumors by stimulating their immune response.

Choroidal melanoma is the most common ocular malignancy. If it is not treated quickly enough, metastases develop and can cause death. Researchers at the University Hospital of Erlangen, Germany, have developed a vaccine to prevent the development of metastases.

Dendritic cells typically trigger the immune response after recognizing a threat. However, in cancer patients, the tumor often blocks the immune response. The new vaccine contains custom dendritic cells and triggers the immune response, which delays or prevents the formation of metastases.

Right now, 200 German patients involved in the study of the vaccine.

A new laser treatment administered during early stages of age-related macular degeneration may slow, even reverse, the progression of the disease.

The new technique involving nanosecond laser may also have implications for other eye diseases such as diabetic macular oedema, diabetic retinopathy and retinopathy of prematurity.

A study conducted on humans and mice showed that treatment using low-energy nanosecond laser limits the progression of the disease, without damaging the retina. Furthermore, treatment in one eye can also produce positive effects in the other untreated eye.

Gerald Weissmann, editor-in-chief of The FASEB Journal, which published the findings, believes that this research could “usher in an era in which age-related macular degeneration is either eliminated or no longer considered a serious disease.”

For further information: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150202105602.htm

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology in the United States have created a corrective lens that tints on demand.

There are limitations to photochromic lenses. They do not always provide enough protection in very strong light and do not darken enough when worn behind the windshield of a car.

Wearers of the lenses designed by the U.S. researchers activate the colouring and go from one tint to another by pressing the electrical switch on the temple. The lenses are made with four electrochromic polymers. They blend together in reaction to the tiny electrical charge set off by the switch, thus darkening the lenses.

The researchers are convinced this innovation could easily be mass-produced.

To read more: http://www.optometry.co.uk/news-and-features/news/?article=6889