New Retina Radio By Eyetube

Duke faculty interview key lecturers from the 2025 Duke AVS Course about their podium talks. Jason Hsu, MD, discusses the best ways to manage proliferative vitreoretinopathy, Majda Hadziahmetovic, MD, shares new data on the effect of GLP-1 receptor agonists on diabetic retinopathy, Aleksandra V. Rachitskaya, MD, explains the value of multimodal Imaging in adults with a history of prematurity, and Gavin Tan, MD, PhD, FRCSed, discusses management approaches for myopic tractional maculopathy and macular holes.

Faculty from the 2025 Duke AVS Course ask key lecturers to share pearls from their presentations. Lejla Vajzovic, MD, discusses various pediatric retinal conditions that can manifest later in life, Jason Fan, MD, explains trends in anesthesia use for open-globe surgery, and Glenn J. Jaffe, MD, examines the role of AI in retina clinical trials.

During the 2025 Duke AVS Course, Duke faculty sat down with several key lecturers to discuss their presentations. Avni P. Finn, MD, MBA, discussed her experiences delivering subretinal gene therapy, David Zacks, MD, PhD, explored important factors in retinal detachment repair, Xi Chen, MD, PhD, highlighted the various surgical approaches for young patients who present without a posterior vitreous detachment, and Yannek I. Leiderman, MD, PhD, provided pearls for scleral fixation of secondary IOLs. 

Could addressing fibrosis in wet AMD and DME unlock greater durability of treatment? Marion Munk, MD, PhD, joins the show to discuss results from the phase 2a BETTER study, which assessed the use of the anti-fibrosis agent ISTH0036 in patients with wet AMD and DME. And Diana Do, MD, sits down to review data from the LIGHTSITE IIIB study, which examined whether patients who underwent photobiomodulation therapy realized any benefit after re-administration following a 13-month washout period. Did the break in treatment lead to irreversible vision loss? Or were patients able experience a benefit after taking more than a year off? We have the answers in this episode. 

Next-generation anti-VEGF agents are designed for durability. But does that actually change the rate at which they’re administered? David Miller, MD, joins us to review a pair of ARVO 2025 presentations that examined his clinic’s real-world administration patterns for bevacizumab (Avastin, Genentech), faricimab (Vabysmo, Genentech/Roche), and high-dose aflibercept (Eylea HD, Regeneron). What were the differences—and did they really matter?  Also, Robert Wang, MD, helped us understand the state of play in the TKI pipeline as he shared data from the phase 2b ODYSSEY study. What are the latest data on CLX-AX (Clearside Biomedcial)? And where does it stack up against the other TKIs in the pipeline? Stick with us to find out. 

How do GLP-1 drugs influence age-related ocular diseases such as macular degeneration and glaucoma? Moderator Lediana Goduni, MD, is joined by Alexis Warren, MD, and Joshua Uhr, MD, to examine a retrospective study published in Ophthalmology using TriNetX data to compare 5-year ocular outcomes across medication cohorts. Do these data suggest a protective benefit for GLP-1s—and does it matter for clinical practice? Tune in for their take on what’s promising, what’s premature, and what’s next.

Questions abound about fellow eye rhegmatogenous retinal detachments (RRD). How often do fellow eye develop RRD after the first one is repaired? What concomitant conditions do fellow eyes with RRD have? What risk factors exist for fellow eye RRD? And which procedures are used to repair fellow eye RRD? Moderator Barton Blackorby, MD, and panelists Louis Cai, MD, and Hong-Uyen Hua, MD, dissect the latest data on these questions from the AAO IRIS Registry and then compare how these data align with their respective clinical experiences. 

What are the real-world safety data following administration of faricimab (Vabysmo, Genentech)? Maura Di Nicola, MD, and guests Sruthi Arepalli, MD, and Barton Blackorby, MD, review data from a real-world, single-center, retrospective study of approximately 4500 injections of faricimab in over 700 patients at Wills Eye Hospital. What did the data show? And do these data effect the clinical patterns of Drs. Di Nicola, Arepalli, and Blackorby? 

Sponsored by Apellis Pharmaceuticals. Scott Walter, MD, and Esther Kim, MD, join John W. Kitchens, MD, to discuss how they treat GA in their practices. Listen to gain expert insights as Drs. Kim, Walter, and Kitchens each share their experiences with this treatment. They also share best practices for dosing based on trial data.

Sponsored by Apellis Pharmaceuticals. John W. Kitchens, MD, invites Scott Walter, MD, and Esther Kim, MD, to discuss best practices for identifying appropriate patients with GA for treatment. Gain perspectives on patient selection, patient education, and safety considerations.

How can OCT angiography help retina specialists distinguish between retinal vein occlusion (RVO) and retinal artery occlusion (RAO) in patients who present without acute findings? Using real-world cases as a backdrop, Yasha Modi, MD, and Kat Talcott, MD, discuss Dr. Modi’s approach to distinguishing RVO and RAO via OCT angiography and review which specific OCT angiography findings may indicate referral to cardiology. Later in the episode, they explore the utility and limitations of OCT angiography in patients with diabetic retinopathy.  This episode is supported by Zeiss Professional Education.

What role can OCT angiography play in tracking the development of central serous retinopathy (CSR)? Yasha Modi, MD, and Kat Talcott, MD, review the use of OCT angiography in a real-world CSR case, discuss the value of selecting OCT angiography over fluorescein angiography for patients with neovascularization, and parse which populations are not a good fit for OCT angiography.  This episode is supported by Zeiss Professional Education.

Does switching wet AMD patients from aflibercept (Eylea, Regeneron) to faricimab (Vabysmo, Genentech) improve disease outcomes? Join Ben Young, MD, MS, and his guests Lediana Goduni, MD, and Joshua Uhr, MD, as they explore this a recent peer review paper on this question. What are the potential benefits of such a switch? How should providers use findings such as these to inform their practice? And are significant improvements in anatomy relevant if vision gains are unchanged? 

What are the benefits and limitations to FDA-approved therapies for geographic atrophy? John Kitchens, MD, is joined by Saradha Chexal, MD, and Geeta Lalwani, MD, as they explore which patients are best suited for treatment, how best to succinctly set expectations for outcomes, and whether patients on GA therapy may also be well-suited AREDS vitamins.

How many real-world patients with proliferative DR were concordant with the treatment directions in Protocol S? Adrienne Scott, MD, explains how a database review of real-world patients with proliferative DR revealed how few patients are concordant with the strict dosing schedule of Protocol S, and shares which baseline factors were linked to lack of concordance. And Dilraj Grewal, MD, provides an update on the relationship between retinal imaging and detection of Alzheimer disease. Just how close are we from using noninvasive retinal imaging techniques to screen for potential neurodegenerative conditions?

Does metformin use reduce the risk of developing AMD in non-diabetic patients? Moderator Rebecca Soares, MD, and panelists Matt Starr, MD, and Nikisha Kothari, MD, review a decade-long case control-control study assessing risk of AMD in non-diabetic patients who have been taking metformin for any reason. They ask whether the study's blindspots undercut its findings, and speculate what other questions further research could answer.

We’ve got to keep our eye on the pipeline. What do the latest data tell us about two drug candidates? Durga Borkar, MD, MMCi, reviews data from a phase 2 study assessing the safety and efficacy ONL1204 (ONL Therapeutics) delivered prior to RRD surgery. Did injecting ONL1204, which prevents Fas activation, lead to any postsurgical differences? Alex Melamud stops by to discuss the phase 2/3 SAGA study assessing the safety and efficacy of gildeuretinol (Alkeus Pharmaceuticals), an oral agent for the treatment of geographic atrophy. Can this drug succeed where other oral options in retina have failed? 

The ELEVATUM study exclusively enrolled historically underrepresented patients in a study assessing faricimab (Vabysmo, Genentech/Roche) for DME. Were there any surprises in the data? Jeremiah Brown, MD, MS, sits down with New Retina Radio to review the philosophy behind the ELEVATUM study, discuss the study’s findings, and preview the next phases of the trial. And Eric Schneider, MD, joins the program to discuss the findings of a pivotal study assessing home OCT (Scanly, Notal Vision) in wet AMD patients. Is home OCT equivalent to in-office OCT when it comes to visualization? And do expert graders agree with an AI algorithm’s assessments of patient’s pathology?

Are retina doctors seeing more retinal pathology following infection or vaccination? Or is there nothing to see here? Rahul Khurana, MD, joins us to discuss the findings of various health care database analyses seeking to clarify whether COVID infection or vaccination were linked to retinal manifestations. Was there a clear—or even an opaque—connection between the two? And Paul Hahn, MD, PhD, sits down with us to explain how inflation, new realities of reimbursement, and step therapy directives are playing out in retina clinics in the United States. Inflation-adjusted reimbursement is declining—but can anything be done about it? And is step therapy actually saving the system any cash? 

We finally have two FDA-approved treatments for geographic atrophy (GA)—and yet, many retina specialists have been reluctant to embrace them. Join moderator John Kitchens, MD, as he explores this question with Miguel Busquets, MD, and Esther Kim, MD. Further in the episode, they gameplan patient conversations centered around choosing a treatment, ask how heavily to weigh safety when selecting a complement inhibitor, and preview the GA pipeline.