Foreword – European Ophthalmic Review, 2011,5(1):8

Over the last few decades, technical and scientific development has generated an urgent need for the dissemination of updated knowledge to all personnel categories in healthcare. The demand for efficiency and quality in healthcare has increased and made it mandatory to supplant older methods when new and improved technologies become available. Practitioners in eye care have to cope with a rapidly growing knowledge base in order to provide optimum care for patients with any of the large variety of disorders that may occur in the visual system. Subspecialisation certainly improves accuracy and efficiency within each field, but some important factors bridge the speciality borders. This issue of European Ophthalmic Review reflects the diversity in our speciality and the interconnections between the subspecialities.
Innovation in cataract surgery, reviewed by Franchini may have some, albeit distant, relation to post-operative anti-inflammatory treatment, contributed by Cho. Ocular blood flow, discussed by Dimitrova, is important for retinal disorders, but has also been discussed for a long time in the pathophysiology of glaucoma. However, intraocular pressure (IOP) is the dominant and modifiable risk factor and the group from Geneva contributes with a detailed analysis of diurnal IOP variation.
Surgical approaches to correction of refractive errors have become a hot topic and three relevant articles are found in this issue. In terms of the retina, four important conditions are reported upon. Age-related macular degeneration is the dominating cause of severe visual impairment in older age in the developed world and new treatments and possibly also prophylactic methods may be available within a foreseeable future. The impact of screening for diabetic retinopathy on current eye care is a highly significant subject for all ophthalmologists, as is the worrisome increase in the prevalence of basal cell carcinoma.
Last but not least, the description of methods for minimally invasive strabismus surgery will provide food for thought at many centres around the world.
European Ophthalmic Review has again demonstrated its relevance as a provider of useful information, supporting development in all branches of eye care. ■