A panel discussion between Dr Frank Eperjesi, Dr Scott Mackie, Dr Thomas Kaercher and Professor John M Nolan looked at the management of Eye floaters and the current research behind VitroCap®N.
Designed to be taken daily, VitroCap®N uses ingredients including vitamin C, grapeseed extract and zinc, and has been found to decrease the prevalence of floaters in 70% of patients across a double-blind, placebo-controlled study. The six-month Floater Invention Study (FLIES) study demonstrated significant improvements in subjective visual disturbances, as well as vitreous opacity density and contrast sensitivity.
During the roundtable hosted in partnership with VivaQuity, OT speaks to two UK optometrists about their current management of floaters in practice, discusses experiences of the VitroCap N with a German ophthalmologist, and hears from a vision scientist from the Republic of Ireland about the years of research that have gone into confirming the supplement’s viability.
In Scotland, Dr Scott Mackie finds that he rarely goes a day without encountering a patient who is being troubled by floaters – in fact, he identifies around 10 instances of posterior vitreous detachment (PVD) every week. He initially asks the question as part of his routine history and symptoms and follows up by identifying how much the floater’s impact on quality of life.
“I move on to ask if their floaters are getting worse, regarding duration or intensity,” Mackie, owner of Mackie Opticians, explained. “I ask when it troubles them the most. I would always cut it down to day driving or night driving. Night driving with floaters is a nightmare.”
Thankfully for Mackie, coming across a retinal detachment is much rarer than it is a PVD – allowing quality of life to be the main discussion point. As well as night driving, he sees reading as something that can be vastly impacted by floaters. He demonstrates the effect that floaters are having via a low contrast chart, which he finds “a bit of a game changer” for patients.
The Scottish requirement to dilate every patient means that Mackie sees more floaters than he might in another location – especially in myopes, as the vitreous starts to deteriorate after the age of 21.
In the West Midlands, optometrist Dr Frank Eperjesi finds that floaters tend to present in one of two ways: the patient identifying the condition themselves and seeking out help, or, like Mackie, through history and symptoms.
In the first instance, Eperjesi moves on to identifying whether the patient has a retinal tear or detatchment, or whether there is one impending.
“When they present and volunteer that information, I get concerned, and obviously that opens up a whole raft of tests that I would do,” he explained.
When floaters are discovered via history and symptoms, Eperjesi said, “I further investigate that by asking, ‘How long have you noticed them for? Do you have many of them? Do they trouble you in your everyday life?’”
He believes that the VitroCap N can provide a treatment option for those patients who are troubled by floaters, but do not have a retinal tear or PVD, where there might not have been a solution previously.
“Because now we’ve got VitroCap N available, there’s a possibility of treating those people whose quality of life is affected by their floaters,” Eperjesi said. “That’s not something I used to ask much in the past, because, other than Vitreolysis or vitrectomy, there really wasn’t anything available for a person who had floaters that were troublesome to them.
Read the full article at Optometry today or see the discussion in the video below.
