Publications by authors named "J T Handa"
Inherited retinal degeneration (IRD) disease and age-related macular degeneration (AMD) are leading causes of irreversible vision loss and blindness. Although significant progress has advanced the field in the past 5 years, significant challenges remain. The current article reviews the accomplishments and research advances that have fueled the development of treatments for patients with IRD and AMD, including the first approved gene-augmentation treatment for RPE65-related retinal degeneration and complement inhibition therapies to slow progression of geographic atrophy (GA) in AMD.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Automated retinal cell layer segmentation empowers OCT as a precise tool for characterizing morphologic features of retinal health throughout age-related macular degeneration (AMD) progression, particularly in advance of more visible biomarkers such as drusen and macular pigmentary changes. Few studies have examined OCT changes in eyes progressing from early to intermediate disease, or combined examinations of cell layer thickness, reflectivity, and heterogeneity. Therefore, this study analyzed OCTs from eyes progressing from early to intermediate AMD to identify changes in retinal morphology and reflectivity that may serve as biomarkers of early progression.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArticle Synopsis
- - Maternal smoking during pregnancy has notable negative effects on the cognitive and behavioral development of offspring, with this study specifically comparing the impacts of nicotine and cigarette smoke on gene expression in developing brains.
- - Researchers found a significant number of differentially expressed genes (1,010 for nicotine and 4,165 for smoking) linked to prenatal exposure, indicating different neurodevelopmental pathways affected by each substance.
- - The findings suggest that while both prenatal nicotine exposure and maternal smoking have specific and overlapping effects on the developing brain, these effects are not replicated in the adult brain, highlighting developmental-stage sensitivity to smoke-related changes.
Article Synopsis
- The study looked at how well surgeries helped people with a specific eye problem caused by sickle cell retinopathy, which can lead to retinal detachments.
- It included 30 eyes from patients, showing that most of them (70%) had successful surgery that fixed the problem after 6 months, and nearly all (93.3%) had their retinas attached again by the end.
- Overall, the surgeries improved their vision, but patients with more serious repeated problems didn't see much improvement.
Importance: Functional outcomes after repair of rhegmatogenous retinal detachments (RRDs) are highly dependent on baseline visual acuity and foveal status. Adverse social determinants of health (SDOH) can present barriers to timely presentation for repair and limit vision outcomes.
Objective: To evaluate the association between neighborhood-level SDOH with baseline severity (visual acuity and fovea status) of RRD.