Historical Perspectives on the Management of Macular Degeneration, Diabetic Retinopathy, and Retinal Detachment: Personal Reminiscences.
We were challenged and delighted when Dr. Sharon Solomon, guest editor of this Retina Supplement, invited us to reminisce about caring for patients with common retinal disorders before there was access to the diagnostic and therapeutic tools that are readily available today. We agreed to confine our remarks to 3 common, but serious, conditions: age-related macular degeneration (Dr. Fine), diabetic retinopathy (Dr. Goldberg), and retinal detachment (Dr. Tasman). Each of us completed our ophthalmology training about half a century ago. At that time, a patient who received any 1 of the 3 diagnoses was at considerable risk of severe and irreversible loss of vision. Most readers today will have little if any experience in evaluating and treating such patients without access to a plethora of diagnostic and therapeutic technologies, including intravenous fluorescein angiography, laser photocoagulation, optical coherence tomography, ophthalmic ultrasound, angioinhibitory drugs, vitrectomy, intraocular gases, and many others. We are both pleased and privileged that each of us has practiced our profession long enough to enjoy what the enormous technological developments of the past half century, as described in this article, have meant for our patients.
Clinical Professor of Ophthalmology, University of Colorado School of Medicine; and Emeritus Professor of Ophthalmology and Emeritus Director, Scheie Eye Institute, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Electronic address: stuart.fine@ucdenver.edu.
Stuart L
SL
Fine
Emeritus Director, Wilmer Eye Institute, Joseph Green Professor of Ophthalmology, The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, Maryland.
Morton F
MF
Goldberg
Professor and Emeritus Chairman, Department of Ophthalmology, Sidney Kimmel College of Thomas Jefferson University, Emeritus Ophthalmologist-in-Chief and Attending Surgeon, Wills Eye Hospital, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
William
W
Tasman