Retinal Vascular Occlusion after COVID-19 Vaccination: More Coincidence than Causal Relationship? Data from a Retrospective Multicentre Study.

Background: To investigate whether vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 is associated with the onset of retinal vascular occlusive disease (RVOD).

Methods: In this multicentre study, data from patients with central and branch retinal vein occlusion (CRVO and BRVO), central and branch retinal artery occlusion (CRAO and BRAO), and anterior ischaemic optic neuropathy (AION) were retrospectively collected during a 2-month index period (1 June-31 July 2021) according to a defined protocol. The relation to any previous vaccination was documented for the consecutive case series.

[Current situation of allocation of academic medical personnel in ophthalmology departments in Germany].

Background: At present minimum nursing staff numbers have been defined and are being implemented. In December 2019 the German Medical Association asked the German professional associations about their general experience with planning of medical personnel in hospital departments. As no structured data were available on this subject, the German Ophthalmological Society (DOG) founded a working group in March 2020 to answer this request.

Autoantibodies to prothrombin and phosphatidylserine/prothrombin-complexes: do they contribute to the serodiagnosis of primary and secondary anti-phospholipid syndrome?

The diagnostic and clinical relevance of Ab to pure and phosphatidylserine-complexed prothrombin for primary and secondary APS was investigated in a total of 357 patients with (n = 169) and without (n = 188) connective tissue diseases. The overall frequency of anti-prothrombin Ab in sAPS, pAPS and patients without APS-related symptoms were found to be 50.0, 37.

Reactivity profiles of autoantibodies to different phospholipids and the phospholipid-binding protein beta2-glycoprotein I in patients with clinical symptoms related to thromboembolic and/or vasculopathic events with or without connective tissue diseases.

To study the antigenic and epitope specificities of anti-phospholipid Ab in detail, we investigated 177 patients without (62 with APS-related systemic clinical symptoms, 115 with microangiopathies) and 164 patients with connective tissue diseases (CTD). Ab associated with primary APS (pAPS) seem to show a restricted specificity (phospholipid/beta2-GPI-complexes), whereas those in secondary APS (sAPS) react additionaly with pure beta2-GPI. Simultaneously, beta2-GPI-independent Ab were also frequently present in both conditions (50% of all Ab-positive sera).