Publications by authors named "Sara Wester"

Purpose: To compare regression rates, characteristics, and surgical outcomes of thyroid eye disease patients who underwent orbit, strabismus, or eyelid surgery at various times during or after teprotumumab treatment.

Design: Multicenter, retrospective, observational cohort study.

Participants: Adult patients (age >18) with a minimum of 4 infusions of teprotumumab treatment for thyroid eye disease who had had eye surgery during or after treatment.

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Purpose: To determine the rate of re-treatment in patients who receive a full course of teprotumumab therapy for thyroid eye disease (TED) and drivers of re-treatment.

Design: Multicenter retrospective study.

Participants: All patients who received a full course of treatment and had available data at 1 year after initial treatment were included.

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Context: Thyroid eye disease (TED) is an autoimmune disease characterized by orbital inflammation and tissue remodeling. TED pathogenesis is poorly understood but is linked to autoantibodies to thyroid-stimulating hormone receptor (TSHR) and insulin-like growth factor 1 receptor (IGF-1R).

Objective: To explore the potential involvement of viral infections in TED pathogenesis.

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Purpose: To review all cases of Erdheim-Chester disease (ECD) with orbital involvement treated at Bascom Palmer Eye Institute in Miami, Florida from 2014 to 2022 and compare presentations, treatment modalities, and outcomes.

Methods: A retrospective chart review of all patients diagnosed with ECD who presented to Bascom Palmer Eye Institute from 2014 to 2022 was performed. Data collected included demographics, pretreatment history and ophthalmic examination, pathology report, treatment, subsequent examination, and relevant laboratory results.

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Purpose: Assess incidence, severity, and glucose excursion outcomes in thyroid eye disease (TED) patients receiving the insulin-like growth factor-1 receptor inhibitor teprotumumab from 3 clinical trials.

Design: Analysis of pooled glycemic data over time.

Participants: Eighty-four teprotumumab- and 86 placebo-treated active TED patients from the phase 2 and phase 3 (OPTIC) controlled clinical trials and 51 teprotumumab-treated patients from the OPTIC extension (OPTIC-X) trial.

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Purpose: Teprotumumab, an insulin-like growth factor 1 receptor monoclonal antibody, is FDA-approved to treat thyroid eye disease (TED). The initial clinical trials excluded patients with previous orbital irradiation, surgery, glucocorticoid use (cumulative dose >1 gm), or prior biologic treatment. Information on the use of teprotumumab for patients who failed prior therapy is limited.

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Context: Early inflammatory thyroid eye disease (TED) can lead to symptomatic chronic disease, including disabling proptosis. Teprotumumab, an insulin-like growth factor-1 receptor (IGF-1R) inhibitor, previously demonstrated efficacy in acute, high-inflammation TED trials.

Objective: We present data from the first placebo-controlled trial with teprotumumab in chronic/low disease activity TED.

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Purpose: To assess the duration, incidence, reversibility, and severity of adverse events (AEs) in patients with thyroid eye disease (TED) treated with teprotumumab.

Design: Multicenter, retrospective, observational cohort study.

Participants: Patients with TED of all stages and activity levels treated with at least 4 infusions of teprotumumab.

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Context: Inhibition of the neonatal fragment crystallizable receptor (FcRn) reduces pathogenic thyrotropin receptor antibodies (TSH-R-Ab) that drive pathology in thyroid eye disease (TED).

Objective: We report the first clinical studies of an FcRn inhibitor, batoclimab, in TED.

Design: Proof-of-concept (POC) and randomized, double-blind placebo-controlled trials.

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Purpose: To assess the sensitivity and specificity of superior visual field tests administered in virtual reality (VR) with eye tracking (VR-ET) and without eye tracking (VR 0 ) for the fulfillment of insurance coverage criteria for functional upper eyelid surgery as compared with standard automated perimetry (SAP).

Methods: This prospective cross-sectional study included 78 eyes from 41 patients with ptosis, brow ptosis, and dermatochalasis undergoing functional upper eyelid surgery evaluation. Participants underwent serial superior visual field tests using SAP and VR 0 or VR-ET in randomized order.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study investigates the effects of receiving fewer than the standard 8 doses of teprotumumab in patients with thyroid eye disease due to the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • It involved 74 patients, mostly women, who received an average of 4.2 infusions and showed significant reductions in proptosis and clinical activity score during the interruption period.
  • The findings suggest that even partial treatment with teprotumumab can lead to meaningful improvements and these benefits are sustained despite treatment interruptions.
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Thyroid eye disease (TED) is a rare disease that can lead to decreased quality of life, permanent disfigurement, and vision loss. Clinically, TED presents with exophthalmos, periorbital edema, extraocular muscle dysfunction, and eyelid retraction, and can lead to vision-threatening complications such as exposure to keratopathy and dysthyroid optic neuropathy (DON). Over the last several years, significant advancements have been made in the understanding of its pathophysiology as well as optimal management.

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Purpose: The lateral tarsal strip (LTS) procedure is commonly used to correct eyelid malposition. When performing LTS, some surgeons elect to remove conjunctiva from the tarsal strip, while others do not. It has been hypothesized that without conjunctival stripping, the buried conjunctival tissue can cause complications such as inclusion cysts and granulomas.

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Purpose: To evaluate teprotumumab safety/efficacy in patients with thyroid eye disease (TED) who were nonresponsive or who experienced a disease flare.

Design: The Treatment of Graves' Orbitopathy to Reduce Proptosis with Teprotumumab Infusions in an Open-Label Clinical Extension Study (OPTIC-X) is a teprotumumab treatment and re-treatment trial following the placebo-controlled teprotumumab Phase 3 Treatment of Graves' Orbitopathy (Thyroid Eye Disease) to Reduce Proptosis with Teprotumumab Infusions in a Randomized, Placebo-Controlled, Clinical Study (OPTIC) trial.

Participants: Patients who previously received placebo (n = 37) or teprotumumab (n = 14) in OPTIC.

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Thyroid eye disease (TED) is a complex disease associated with myriad clinical presentations, including facial disfigurement, vision loss, and decreased quality of life. Traditionally, steroid therapy and/or radiation therapy were commonly used in the treatment of active TED. While these therapies can help reduce inflammation, they often do not have a sustainable, significant long-term effect on disease outcomes, including proptosis and diplopia.

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Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is increasingly used by the orbital surgeon to aid in the diagnosis, surgical planning, and monitoring of orbital disease. MRI provides superior soft tissue detail compared with computed tomography or ultrasound, and advancing techniques enhance its ability to highlight abnormal orbital pathology. Diffusion-weighted imaging is a specialized technique that uses water molecule diffusion patterns in tissue to generate contrast signals and can help distinguish malignant from benign lesions.

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Background: Thyroid eye disease (TED) is a vision-threatening and debilitating condition that until very recently had no Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved medical therapies. Teprotumumab has recently been approved to treat TED. We aim to provide guidance for its use, based on the input of the US investigators who participated in Phase 2 and Phase 3 clinical trials.

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Laser (light amplification by the stimulated emission of radiation) skin resurfacing is currently one of the most widely adopted technologies in facial rejuvenation. While most often used for aesthetic purposes, lasers also have applications in the management of scars. Since the introduction of the CO laser for skin rejuvenation in the 1990s, the last three decades have seen significant growth in the number of laser devices available to the physician.

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Purpose: To evaluate the efficacy of Library of Integrated Network-based Cellular Signatures (LINCS) perturbagen prediction software to identify small molecules that revert pathologic gene signature and alter disease phenotype in orbital adipose stem cells (OASCs) derived from patients with thyroid-associated orbitopathy (TAO).

Methods: Differentially expressed genes identified via RNA sequencing were inputted into LINCS L1000 Characteristic Direction Signature Search Engine (L1000CDS) to predict candidate small molecules to reverse pathologic gene expression. TAO OASC cell lines were treated in vitro with six identified small molecules (Torin-2, PX12, withaferin A, isoliquiritigenin, mitoxantrone, and MLN8054), and expression of key adipogenic and differentially expressed genes was measured with quantitative polymerase chain reaction after 7 days of treatment.

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: To determine the clinical course of patients with chorioretinal folds (CRF) in thyroid eye disease (TED).: A multi-center retrospective case series of patients with TED who developed CRF.: Ten patients (17 eyes) with CRF related to TED were identified.

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Background: Thyroid eye disease is a debilitating, disfiguring, and potentially blinding periocular condition for which no Food and Drug Administration-approved medical therapy is available. Strong evidence has implicated the insulin-like growth factor I receptor (IGF-IR) in the pathogenesis of this disease.

Methods: In a randomized, double-masked, placebo-controlled, phase 3 multicenter trial, we assigned patients with active thyroid eye disease in a 1:1 ratio to receive intravenous infusions of the IGF-IR inhibitor teprotumumab (10 mg per kilogram of body weight for the first infusion and 20 mg per kilogram for subsequent infusions) or placebo once every 3 weeks for 21 weeks; the last trial visit for this analysis was at week 24.

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