We’re back in Barcelona for EURETINA 2024! The page may have turned from ESCRS and anterior segment, but the retinal ophthalmic innovation and research on display here is more poised than ever to write its own story in posterior segment.
It’s not often that Europe’s two most significant ophthalmic conferences are held in the same city a week apart. This year the stars aligned to place the 24th Congress of the European Society of Retina Specialists (EURETINA 2024) nearly a week after the 42nd Congress of the European Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons (ESCRS 2024), so if you missed that head here.
The focus of global ophthalmology has shifted to retina, and with it our daily show coverage, which we’ll be bringing to you live every day until EURETINA 2024 wraps up on September 22nd.
Day 1 of the conference was marked by the usual parade of game-changing innovations, research and industry collaborations, but one event made this annual celebration of European retinal medicine bittersweet—the tragic passing of EURETINA President Prof. Ramin Tadayoni (France) in April.
Tributes poured out to Prof. Tadayoni throughout the day, but none more than in the 16:15 Opening Ceremony, EURETINA Lecture and Awards session—one of our highlight sessions for the day. Luminaries like current EURETINA President Prof. Anat Loewenstein (Israel) paid tribute to the late Prof. Tadayoni with kind words, with the EURETINA Lecture being fittingly awarded to Prof. Kyoko Ohno-Matsui (Japan) for a topic in retina that he helped pioneer. To read more, including more on the EURETINA Lecture and the awards given out, check out our writeup now.
More than 8,000 delegates are in attendance here in Barcelona—unprecedented for a retina conference—and the packed halls of the CCIB Barcelona reflected these gaudy numbers.
It didn’t have the feel of a niche ophthalmology show, much to the exhausted delight of your correspondent—and there were many parallels to be noted with the massive ESCRS 2024 Congress the week before.
One common feature of ESCRS 2024 and EURETINA 2024 was a robust industry presence—and a lineup of symposia showcasing their latest contributions to eye care. Hot industry topics range from innovations in anti-VEGF to the fate and future of complement inhibition in geographic atrophy—and potentially trailblazing developments in gene therapies for inherited retinal diseases. The list of industry symposia is simply too long to list here, so go here to check out what industry has in store for the rest of the conference!
And speaking of anti-VEGF, as one of the most prominent topics in retinal medicine, we’d be remiss not to bring you the latest on that front from the academic and scientific program, so be sure to check out our morning highlight session on Euretina Session 1: Neovascular AMD. There’s all kinds of intrigue in that space, so see what Dr. Arshad Khanani (USA), and Profs. Anat Loewenstein (Israel), Frank Holz (Germany) and Sobha Sivaprasad (United Kingdom) had to say about where we are—and what’s next—here.
Novel imaging modalities are also starting to sprout everywhere, and another one of our highlight sessions is there to help you keep track of it all! Join Profs. Marion Munk (Switzerland), Gemmy Cheung (Singapore) and other luminaries for a very special International Retinal Imaging society (IntRIS) session designed to keep you on the cutting edge—that info is waiting for you with a quick read here.
And if that’s not enough, we’ve got one last treat for you out of medical retina! There’s plenty of new disease entities in the field, but session co-chairs Profs. Sandrine Zweifel (Switzerland) and Michael Engelbert (USA) also think that there are some new perspectives on old ones to keep in mind. Find out what they have in store for you with our final writeup of the day—and join us on Day 2 for even more live EURETINA 2024 coverage straight from Barcelona.
Editor’s Note: Reporting for this story took place at the 24th Congress of the European Society of Retina Specialists (EURETINA 2024), held from 19-22 September in Barcelona, Spain.
