Graphene Oxide Thin Films with Drug Delivery Function

Funding Information: Funding: Funding was obtained through the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) through the projects iNOVA4Health, Translational Medicine program—UIDB/Multi/04462/2020; UIDB/50008/2020 and PTDC/CTM-REF/2679/2020.Graphene oxide has been used in different fields of nanomedicine as a manager of drug delivery due to its inherent physical and chemical properties that allow its use in thin films with biomedical applications. Several studies demonstrated its efficacy in the control of the amount and the timely delivery of drugs when it is incorporated in multilayer films. It has been demonstrated that oxide graphene layers are able to work as drug delivery or just to delay consecutive drug dosage, allowing the operation of time-controlled systems. This review presents the latest research developments of biomedical applications using graphene oxide as the main component of a drug delivery system, with focus on the production and characterization of films, in vitro and in vivo assays, main applications of graphene oxide biomedical devices, and its biocompatibility properties.publishersversionpublishe

Choroidal Binarization Analysis: Clinical Application

Introduction: Image processing of optical coherence tomography scans through binarization techniques represent a non-invasive way to separately asses and measure choroidal components, in vivo. In this review, we systematically search the scientific literature regarding binarization studies published so far. Methods: A systematic research was conducted at PubMed database, including English literature articles for all of the following terms in various combinations: binarization, choroid/al, enhanced depth spectral domain/swept source optic coherence tomography, and latest publications up to November 2018 were reviewed. Results: Thirty-seven articles were included and analyzed regarding studied disease, binarization method, studied variables, and outcomes. Most of the studies have focused on the more common retinal pathologies, such as age-related macular degeneration, central serous chorioretinopathy and diabetic retinopathy but binarization techniques have also been applied to the study of choroidal characteristics in ocular inflammatory diseases, corneal dystrophies and in postsurgical follow-up. Advantages and disadvantages of binarization techniques are also discussed. Conclusion: Binarization of choroidal images seems to represent a promising approach to study choroid subcomponents in an increasingly detailed manner.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Disturbed correlation between arterial resistance and pulsatility in glaucoma patients

(i) To investigate whether pulsatility index (PI) and mean flow velocities (MFV) are altered in glaucoma patients. (ii) To evaluate the significance of PI in retrobulbar autoregulation capacity.status: publishe

Visual field loss in optic disc drusen patients correlates with central retinal artery blood velocity patterns

(1) To characterize the retrobulbar circulation in patients with optic disc drusen (ODD) using colour Doppler imaging; (2) to explore the differences in retrobulbar hemodynamics in patients with primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG).status: publishe

Towards the Development and Validation of a Smartphone-Based Pupillometer for Neuro-Ophthalmological Diseases Screening

A special acknowledgment to Compta S.A. team and to the Ophthalmology Department of Hospital Santa Maria for all the support given. Publisher Copyright: © 2021, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.Pupillometry allows a quantitative measurement of PLR and has been mainly used to assess patient’s consciousness and vision function. The analysis of pupil light reflex (PLR) has been showing a renewed interest since the discovery of intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (ipRGCs), that are sensitive to the blue light, as they have an important role in pupil response to a stimulus. Some researches have studied pupillometry, particularly chromatic pupillometry that uses blue and red stimuli, to be a screening tool for neuro-ophthalmological diseases. Automated pupillometers have been widely used, however they are either not portable or expensive, reason why this technique has been mainly used in academic research. A smartphone-based pupillometer could be a promising equipment to overcome these limitations and to be a widespread screening tool, due to its low price, portability and accessibility. This work shows our latest advances towards the development and validation of an Android system for pupillometry measurements. Pupillometric data was collected with the smartphone application in a group of five healthy individuals and used to test our proposed data processing algorithms. These tests showed that the data processing methods that we are proposing, although promising, did not behave as expected, indicating that new approaches, better validations and corrections should be made in the future to get a stable software for pupil detection. Nevertheless, preliminary pupillometric data indicate that this system has the potential to work as an inexpensive, easy-to-use and portable pupillometer.authorsversionpublishe

Improved efficacy of ocriplasmin for vitreomacular traction release and transient changes in optic disk morphology

To determine the efficacy and safety of ocriplasmin for vitreomacular traction (VMT) resolution and to study changes in optic disk and peripapillary region.status: publishe

Correlation Between Peripapillary Choroidal Thickness and Retinal Vessel Oxygen Saturation in Young Healthy Individuals and Glaucoma Patients

To investigate the correlation between peripapillary choroidal thickness (CT) and retinal vessel oxygen saturation (SO2) in young healthy individuals and open-angle glaucoma (OAG) patients.status: publishe

Ocular pulse amplitude and Doppler waveform analysis in glaucoma patients

To determine the correlation between ocular blood flow velocities and ocular pulse amplitude (OPA) in glaucoma patients using colour Doppler imaging (CDI) waveform analysis.status: publishe

A literature review

Publisher Copyright: © 2015, Jaypee Brothers Medical Publishers (P) Ltd. All rights reserved.Glaucoma is a multifactorial condition under serious influence of many risk factors. The role of diabetes mellitus (DM) in glaucoma etiology or progression remains inconclusive. Although, the diabetic patients have different healing mechanism comparing to the general population and it has a possible-negative role on surgical outcomes. This review article attempts to analyze the association of both diseases, glaucoma and DM, before and after the surgery. The epidemiological studies, based mainly in population prevalence analyzes, have shown opposite outcomes in time and even in the most recent articles also the association remains inconclusive. On the contrary, the experimental models based on animal induced chronic hyperglycemia have shown an important association of both diseases, explained by common neurodegenerative mechanisms. Diabetic patients have a different wound healing process in the eye viz-a-viz other organs. The healing process is more and it results in lower surgical survival time, higher intraocular pressure (IOP) levels and, therefore, these patients usually need more medication to lower the IOP. Both randomized and nonrandomized retrospective and experimental molecular studies have shown the association between DM and glaucoma. Further studies are needed to get better explanations about outcomes on more recent surgical procedures and with the exponential use of antifibrotics.publishersversionpublishe

Higher optic nerve sheath diameters are associated with lower ocular blood flow velocities in glaucoma patients

To investigate the relationship between optic nerve sheath diameter (ONSD) and retrobulbar blood flow velocities, as measured by color Doppler imaging (CDI) in glaucoma patients.status: publishe