It’s curtains for the 17th Congress of the Asia-Pacific Vitreo-retina Society (APVRS 2024). We recap our coverage and give a unique perspective on the action in Singapore.
It’s all over here at the Suntec Singapore Convention and Exhibition Centre for APVRS as Day 3 of Asia’s premiere retinal event comes to a close. As the more than 2,000 participants from over 40 countries begin their journey home, it’s time to reflect on the long weekend that was in the Lion City.
In this final recap of the conference—and the year for our 2024 conference coverage (more on that later), we’re running down the biggest stories on APVRS 2024 Day 3, but of the entire Congress.
We also sat down with pediatric ophthalmologist Dr. Sun Chen Hsin of Singapore’s National University Hospital over some iced yuan yang C (that’s coffee AND tea with milk and sugar) to get a non-retinal specialist’s perspective on the weekend. He shared his top moments for the conference—and why he thinks every ophthalmologist should take the occasional walk on the wild side at a conference outside of their specialty.
So strap in, read on, and send out the 2024 ophthalmic congress calendar in style!
Congress coverage highlights
Day 3 saved some of the best for last, and we were there to cover it all. Things got started early with one of the most anticipated sessions of the Congress—the Late Breaking Reports symposium. Neovascular AMD was the most talked-about disease, with novel gene therapies and intravitreal implants dominating the conversation. Check out the coverage here!
Our second highlight session was nominally about dry age-related macular degeneration, but late-stage progression to geographic atrophy (GA) once again stole the show (is this the topic of the year in retina?). Prominent regional and global experts spoke on topics from imaging to the present and current state of the art in therapies for GA, so check it out now.
And if you haven’t guessed already, it’s impossible to look back on this Congress without mentioning GA first. Everyone was talking about the disease, every day was full of presentations about it, and questions about it were even popping up in sessions that seemed to have nothing to do with it. We covered our own fair share of sessions on the disease, so go here and here, to see what you missed.
Another trend that seemed to reappear frequently was a seeming desire to look beyond the current lineup of intravitreal anti-VEGF agents. Whether it’s turning to gene therapy, exploring new anti-VEGF agents, or putting proven agents into intravitreal agents, it feels like a paradigm shift is on the horizon. Revisit the discussion in Singapore here, here and here to get the latest.
Not just for retinal specialists
Besides these trends, another feature of the Congress was the surprising number of non-retinal specialists prowling the lecture rooms and exhibition hall. So what gives?
Dr. Sun Chen-Hsin, one such non-specialist, has some ideas—and a yuan yang C and kaya toast proved to be the perfect catalyst for sharing.
He took the opportunity to duck out of a classic Singaporean afternoon shower at local spot YY Kafei Dian to discuss his own take on the Congress—and why stepping out of your specialty at conferences like APVRS 2024 could pay some serious dividends in the clinic.
“I think people in private practice and general ophthalmologists—they see everything. Even if you specialize in glaucoma, for example, you see patients with diabetes and you have to know what’s going on with managing their DME,” he said. “It’s critical to stay up to date and get these perspectives, even if you might not think you need to.”
For Dr. Sun, staying up to date in his capacity as a pediatric ophthalmologist means checking out the latest in retinopathy of prematurity (ROP)—and the latest in the field really caught his eye.
Some highlights for Dr. Sun included a presentation by Prof. Wu Wei-Chi (Taiwan) on hand-held OCT for ROP and another on advancements in artificial intelligence in telemedicine screening delivered by Stanford’s Head of Retina Dr. Darius Moshfeghi. “There are some things coming out that I never really imagined,” he said.
Call it a conference, call it a year for Media MICE
By the same token, it’s been a year full of new techniques, technologies and therapies that none of us ever really imagined—and it has been a pleasure bringing it all to you. Day 3 of APVRS 2024 isn’t just the end here in Singapore—it also represents the end of our conference coverage for the year. And what a year it has been.
Through the late nights and early mornings, plane rides and train rides, gallons upon gallons of coffee, and pages and pages of digital ink spilled to cover conferences all around the world, it is our privilege to humbly help to disseminate even just this tiny fraction of the critical eye care knowledge that 2024 has produced.
This has been the most successful year in the history of our editorial coverage of ophthalmology, so whether you’re one or ten or one hundred of the hundreds of thousands of reads of our work this year—thank you for reading.
Who knows what next year holds, but you better believe we’ll be there to report it. Until 2025, this is your correspondent signing off from Singapore—and see you again soon!
Editor’s Note: Reporting for this story took place during the 17th Congress of the Asia-Pacific Vitreo-retina Society (APVRS 2024) from 22-24 November in Singapore.
