Publications by authors named "Cassie Ludwig"

Purpose: Patients with Crohn's disease (CD) and subsequent ocular manifestations may have worse outcomes when compared to matched patients with CD without ocular disease.

Methods: In this retrospective cohort study, an aggregated electronic health records research network, TriNetX (Cambridge, MA, USA), was used to identify patients diagnosed with CD stratified by the presence or absence of ocular involvement with at least 1 year of follow-up. Propensity score matching (PSM) was performed to control for baseline demographics and medical comorbidities.

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Purpose: To evaluate the risk of diabetic retinopathy progression and systemic vascular events, including death, in patients with nonproliferative diabetic retinopathy (NPDR) with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA).

Design: Retrospective cohort study.

Methods: Electronic chart query using TriNetX, an electronic health records network comprising data from over 124 million patients.

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Background And Objective: Three-dimensional heads-up display (HUD) systems have emerged as an alternative to standard operating microscope (SOM) in the operating room. The goal of this study was to quantitatively measure vitreoretinal surgeon posture across visualization methods.

Methods: Ergonomic data was collected from 64 cases at two tertiary eye care centers.

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Purpose: To examine the effects of glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor (GLP-1) agonists compared to SGLT-2 inhibitors on diabetic retinopathy.

Design: Retrospective clinical cohort study using TriNetX, a federated electronic health records network comprising multiple healthcare organizations.

Methods: Patients with an International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (ICD-10) code of nonproliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR) and monotherapy treatment, excluding insulin, with GLP-1 agonists or SGLT-2 inhibitors.

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Purpose: Visual prognosis and treatment burden for macular neovascularization (MNV) can differ between myopic macular degeneration (MMD) and age-related macular degeneration (AMD). We describe and compare MNV associated with MMD and AMD using swept-source (SS)-OCTA.

Patients And Methods: Adult patients with documented MNV associated with MMD or AMD were consecutively recruited.

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Importance: Regular screening for diabetic retinopathy often is crucial for the health of patients with diabetes. However, many factors may be barriers to regular screening and associated with disparities in screening rates.

Objective: To evaluate the associations between visiting an eye care practitioner for diabetic retinopathy screening and factors related to overall health and social determinants of health, including socioeconomic status and health care access and utilization.

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Importance: Patients with retinal artery occlusions (RAOs) are recommended to have emergent stroke workup, although the true risk of death and subsequent vascular events post-RAO is not clear.

Objective: To determine short-term and long-term rates of stroke, myocardial infarction (MI), and death in patients after RAO compared with a control cohort.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This retrospective cohort study used aggregated electronic health records from January 1, 2003, through April 14, 2023, from TriNetX, a network with data from more than 111 million patients.

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Objective: In a world where digital media is deeply engrained into our everyday lives, there lies an opportunity to leverage interactions with technology for health and wellness. The Vision Performance Index (VPI) leverages natural human-technology interaction to evaluate visual function using visual, cognitive, and motor psychometric data over 5 domains: field of view, accuracy, multitracking, endurance, and detection. The purpose of this study was to describe a novel method of evaluating holistic visual function through video game-derived VPI score data in patients with specific ocular pathology.

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Purpose: To examine rates of stroke, myocardial infarction (MI), deep vein thrombosis (DVT), pulmonary embolism (PE), and death in patients after retinal vein occlusion (RVO) compared to controls.

Design: Retrospective cohort study.

Methods: An aggregated electronic health records research network, TriNetX, was used to identify patients with diagnosis of RVO and a control group of patients with cataract.

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Importance: Large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT appear capable of performing a variety of tasks, including answering patient eye care questions, but have not yet been evaluated in direct comparison with ophthalmologists. It remains unclear whether LLM-generated advice is accurate, appropriate, and safe for eye patients.

Objective: To evaluate the quality of ophthalmology advice generated by an LLM chatbot in comparison with ophthalmologist-written advice.

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Myopia is a known risk factor for rhegmatogenous retinal detachment (RRD). Given global trends of increasing myopia, we aimed to determine the absolute risk (incidence rate) of RRD in non-myopes, myopes and high myopes in the United States over ten years. We performed a retrospective cohort study of 85,476,781 commercially insured patients enrolled in the Merative™ Marketscan Research Database.

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Purpose: We report an unusual case of likely combined retinal artery occlusion and retinal vein occlusion after a sneeze. Widefield swept-source optical coherence tomography-angiography was used to analyze retinal changes at one-month follow-up.

Methods: The patient reported visual symptoms in his left eye immediately after sneezing five times in a row.

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Purpose: To report different biometric measurements in high myopia associated with different underlying ocular and genetic conditions.

Design: Retrospective study.

Subjects: Patients with high myopia.

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Purpose: The guarded light pipe is a recently described alternative endoillumination technique to chandelier illumination. We sought to compare the outcomes of scleral buckling (SB) under indirect ophthalmoscopy (ID) to heads-up three-dimensional visualization with a guarded light pipe (3DGLP).

Methods: A retrospective comparative study was performed, including 47 eyes that underwent SB for rhegmatogenous retinal detachment (RRD) repair with either traditional ID (n = 31) or 3DGLP (n = 16).

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The representation of women has increased over the last 20 years among ophthalmology subspecialty society new membership, award winners, and executive committee membership; however, proportional representation is still lacking at most benchmarks.

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Universal newborn eye screening can identify ocular abnormalities early and help mitigate long-term visual impairment. Traditional neonatal and infant eye screening is administered by neonatologists and pediatricians using the red reflex test. If this test identifies an ocular abnormality, then the patient is examined by an ophthalmologist.

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Purpose: Animal models have demonstrated the role of dopamine in regulating axial elongation, the critical feature of myopia. Because frequent delivery of dopaminergic agents via peribulbar, intravitreal, or intraperitoneal injections is not clinically viable, we sought to evaluate ocular penetration and safety of the topically applied dopaminergic prodrug etilevodopa.

Methods: The ocular penetration of dopamine and dopaminergic prodrugs (levodopa and etilevodopa) were quantified using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay in enucleated porcine eyes after a single topical administration.

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Objective: Vision changes can precipitate falls in the elderly resulting in significant morbidity and mortality. We hypothesized that pseudophakic monovision and ensuing anisometropia and aniseikonia impact elderly fall risk. This study assessed fall risk in patients with pseudophakic monovision, pseudophakic single vision distance (classic cataract surgery), and cataracts with no surgery.

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Background/aims: Pathological myopia (PM) is a leading cause of blindness worldwide. We aimed to evaluate microvascular and chorioretinal changes in different stages of myopia with wide-field (WF) swept-source (SS) optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA).

Methods: This prospective cross-sectional observational study included 186 eyes of 122 patients who had undergone imaging between November 2018 and October 2020.

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Purpose: To study the effect of statin exposure on the progression from non-exudative to exudative age-related macular degeneration (AMD).

Methods: Retrospective cohort study of commercially insured patients diagnosed with non-exudative AMD (n = 231,888) from 2007 to 2015. Time-to-event analysis of the association between exposure to lipid-lowering medications and time from non-exudative AMD to exudative AMD diagnosis was conducted.

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Purpose: This work evaluates trends in achievement of women in the retina field, through an analysis of gender representation in the American Society of Retina Specialists (ASRS).

Methods: This retrospective, longitudinal study spans 1983 to 2020. Historical data classified by male or female gender were collected from ASRS's overall membership, board of directors and officers, and recipients of the 4 society awards.

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