At the most important ophthalmology congress in Austria, the HOYA Surgical Optics team brought the magic in 2022. The Österreichische Ophthalmologische Gesellschaft (ÖOG) took place in Villach and we were able to enjoy the company and collaboration of our HOYA Lens colleagues at this event. Our booth offered a place for us to engage with our customers who could watch inspirational campaign and product videos as well as learn more about our IOL technologies.

We sponsored the 4th HSO Phaco-Wetlab which attracted 28 attendees who practiced surgical techniques with over 200 porcine eyes and our IOLs. Customers were able to witness the smooth surgical experience and reliable results of our products first-hand.

The congress took a turn for the fantastic during the “Best of Industry” competition, where each company only had 3 minutes to introduce an innovative product. We chose to showcase our HOYA Wetlab suitcase, a mobile ophthalmology presentation tool that enables our teams to introduce IOL technologies to customers and support training in the operating room. We were very proud to be awarded first place in the competition based on our presentation! Congratulations to the team who made it happen!

Who knows what tricks we’ll have up our sleeves next year at ÖOG. Make sure to visit us to find out!

The Société Française d'Ophtalmologie (SFO) congress, and a visit to Paris in springtime, is always a wonderful way to kick off the HOYA Surgical Optics event season, and 2022 was no exception. As the Parisian gardens bloomed, more than 6,000 French-speaking ophthalmologists arrived for a weekend full of presentations, nearly live surgeries, and conversation.

Our team was busy at the booth, holding many productive discussions about our IOL technologies. We also sponsored two nearly live surgeries featuring our new, preloaded, trifocal IOL, Vivinex™ Gemetric™ and our new, preloaded, enhanced monofocal IOL, Vivinex Impress™. Dr Christophe Baudoiun and Dr Barbara Ameline completed the cataract procedures using HOYA Surgical Optics technologies and we thank them for their professionalism and partnership.

Our lunch symposium on ATIOLs was such a draw that attendance hit the maximum of 220 people allowed in the room. And it’s no wonder given the lineup of powerful speakers who joined to discuss the latest trends with advanced technologies. Dr Catherine Albou Ganem, Dr Pascal Rozot, Prof Corinne Dot, Prof Alexandre Denoyer presented on optical concepts from enhanced monofocal to multifocal lenses and discussed considerations for patient selection and factors that can improve patients’ quality of vision. Next year, we may have to look into booking a bigger hall!

Lastly, HOYA Surgical Optics sponsored awards for the best e-posters in the field of cataract surgery. Congratulations to our first place winner, Dr Sarah Safari, and our second place winner, Dr Emilie Agard. 

Au revoir, Paris, until next spring! 

You might remember that last year – 2020 – the annual ESCRS congress could only take place virtually, due to COVID-19 restrictions.

While ESCRS 2020 was a success, it certainly wasn’t the same. It lacked some of the excitement and energy that makes ESCRS one of our favourite events each year.

So, we were thrilled to hear that this year ESCRS 2021 would be a hybrid event, combining a physical event in Amsterdam alongside streamed and online content for those who couldn’t be there in person.

To borrow the words of esteemed ESCRS president Prof. Nuijts:

“The ESCRS is proud that we took the decision to hold a hybrid meeting and hope this will pave the way for other medical societies to come back on track,” “The ESCRS is the leading organization for cataract and refractive surgeons, and our annual meeting is at the forefront of innovative developments in the anterior segment surgery.”

Held between 8th-11th October, ESCRS welcomed more than 4,200 people to the RAI Amsterdam Congress Centre, while an additional 2,800 people connected online.

BACK IN PERSON

It was wonderful to be back in a HOYA Surgical Optics booth this year, and as you can see, we brought a sleek design to our 50m2 space. A smaller HSO team than usual attended, to be respectful to the smaller, COVID-19-friendly event.

Our main focus for this event was to connect once again with our customers and continue important conversations around improving cataract and refractive care. And connect we did – thank you to everyone who came by and engaged in such great chats with us.To complement our physical presence, we hosted a virtual booth which displayed content about Vivinex™ multiSert™, Nanex multiSert⁺™ and Qube™ pro powered by eyeflexa™. This meant that our online guests could find the same information as those coming to see us in person.

SEE YOU NEXT YEAR?

Times are still unpredictable, but we hope to be at ESCRS 2022 in Milan. Having said that, we thought that the accessibility of a hybrid event – e.g., for those who cannot travel for a variety of reasons – made it a welcome compromise.

From 17th-19th September, Alpbach Austria was home to ÖOG 2021 – back as a fully live, physical event after having to run a virtual COVID-19-friendly format last year.

As the biggest congress in Austria, ÖOG welcomed over 400 participants and we enjoyed lots of visitors to our booth. Thank you for everyone who stopped by, it was great to see so many faces and have such great conversations again.

As you can see, our booth displayed information about Vivinex™ multiSert™, Vivinex™ Toric multiSert™, and Nanex™ multiSert⁺™. We also played our HSO Corporate Video and implantation videos to demonstrate how easy our lenses are to work with.

It was a busy weekend, and here are a few of our highlights.

WET LAB

On Friday the 17th the 3. HSO Phaco Wet Lab was held, in cooperation with MTS.

There were 3 highly respected instructors to run the Wet Lab: Dr. Claus Zehetner, who gave a short presentation “How to start my first Phaco“, supported by Dr. Teresa Rauchegger and Dr. Andreas Dimmer.

Participants were trained on preparing IOLs and were able to try their hand at implanting them as well. There were 2 courses per day with 10 participants each. It was great to see people getting hands-on and to hear their feedback on the lenses and equipment they used.

EDUCATIONAL GRANTS

Empowering the next generation of talent in the cataract space is very important to us. That’s why we once again sponsored educational grants – of €2,000 and €1,500 – which were awarded for worthy research projects at ÖOG 2021.

Dr. Johanna Hoeller was awarded a grant for her project Simple Limbal Epithelial Transplantation (SLET): An innovative method for the treatment of limbal stem cell insufficiency. Dr. Luca Schwarzenbacher received a grant for his research: 1-Year Outcomes after Arcuate Keratotomy in Patients with Low to Moderate Corneal Astigmatisms Using Low Pulse Energy Femtosecond Lasers. We’d like to offer our sincere congratulations to both Johanna and Luca!

MOBILE TRAINING

This year was the first time we promoted our Mobile Training Lab at the booth. DryLab offers decentralised ophthalmic training operations, using a digital microscope connected to a tablet.

The recording taken by the digital microscope is streamed to the iPad, allowing anyone watching to join the training, and follow the instructions given through the audio.

The doctors and visitors who came to take a look at the DryLab in action seemed impressed and enthusiastic about its possibilities, especially given the way that the working world has shifted towards remote operations as a result of the pandemic.

So, there we have it – a busy and successful weekend at ÖOG 2021. Thank you for having us and we can’t wait to see you next year in Villach.

7,000 attendees, one of Paris’ most notable venues, and a line-up of ophthalmic leaders. It could only mean one thing: SFO 2021.

Unlike last year’s fully digital conference, Société Français d’Ophthalmologie were able to re-introduce some of the elements we know and love of in-person events. With a few social distancing measures in place, some speakers and attendees gathered in the Palais de Congrès in Paris from May 8-10th, while the rest of the attendees watched live from the comfort of their homes or offices.

THE 360° BOOTH RETURNS

To the virtual exhibit hall, we brought back our stunning 360° booth. Highly interactive and immersive, it was packed with downloadable content and videos about Vivinex™ multiSert™, Vivinex™ toric multiSert™ and Nanex™ multiSert⁺™.

SYMPOSIUM: OPTIMIZING REFRACTIVE CATARACT SURGERY

The highlight of our time at SFO was our highly anticipated lunchtime Symposium on the 8th of May: How to Optimize your Clinical Results in Refractive Cataract Surgery.

It was chaired by Prof. Corinne Dot, with guest speakers Prof. Dominique Monnet and Dr Serge Zaluski.

Over 45 minutes, we were treated to the latest knowledge, data and advice on a number of topics, such as preventing PCO in cataract surgery, achieving success when treating astigmatism and patient selection criteria for presbyopia correction with a multifocal IOL.

Time was set aside afterwards for questions and discussion from any of the 200 audience members that logged on to watch. A big thank you to all of our speakers and participants for an illuminating event.

WATCHING NANEX MULTISERT⁺ IN ACTION

As wonderful as it is to showcase our IOLs at our digital booth, we think it’s much better to see the technology in the hands of surgeons. So the day after our hit symposium, we premiered a live surgery of Nanex™ multiSert⁺™. Dr Stanislas Roman, operating from Paris, implanted model NY1-SP.

We were thrilled to hear Dr Roman’s complimentary comments, highlighting the lens features and implantation options – he even remarked that our IOL was unanimously voted ‘best preloaded injector available on the market’ by KOLs. A truly glowing review!

THE 8TH YEAR SPONSORING PRIX SFO

For the eighth consecutive year, we were the proud sponsor of this year’s Prix SFO, in which ophthalmic surgeons submit e-posters summarizing their work in cataract surgery.

First prize was awarded to Dr Camille Guichaoua, of CHU Brest, Lorient, France. Her poster was entitled: Evaluation d’un implant à fixation sclérale sans suture/Evaluation of Sclera fixation IOL without sutures.

Second prize went to Dr Gilles Lesieur, of Centre Idris, Albi, France. His poster was entitled: Influence du design et du matériau pour une large série d’implants MICS sur le taux de laser Nd: Yag et le capsulophimosis : résultats à 10 ans/Design and material impact on a large panel of MICS IOL for laser Nd:Yag rate and capsulophimosis: 10 years results.

Judging was as tough as ever and we’d like to offer our congratulations to every entrant for the quality of work we received.

SFO isn’t quite over for 2021, either. There will be a one-day autumn SFO digital session on November 6th, so be sure to register for that – we’ll see you there!

DOC RETURNS FOR 2021

Last year was a challenging year for businesses and especially for congresses. While we completely understand why DOC couldn’t go ahead in 2020, we were glad to see it return this year.

After all, DOC (Internationaler Kongress der deutschen Ophthalmochirurgen) is the biggest and most important congress for German-speaking ophthalmic surgeons. From 17th-19th June, we attended DOC 2021 in a new, virtual format and here are our highlights.

LIVE-CHAT BOOTH

HOYA Surgical Optics had a virtual booth which included a live chat functionality, enabling us to connect via video or text with visitors – something we enjoy the most about conference season each year.

Our slick and modern booth design featured sections for Vivinex™ multiSert™, Vivinex™ multiSert™ Toric, Nanex™ multiSert⁺™, eyeflexa, and Mani knives, all with downloadable brochures or datasheets.

It was encouraging to receive some kind feedback on our booth and video content from our visitors – so thank you to everyone who virtually came along!

LIVE SURGERIES

One of the highlights of DOC this year was the Forum OP-Filme – a session dedicated to screening exclusive surgical videos created especially for the event.

Our contribution was a recorded surgery, performed by the esteemed Dr. Astecker from Austria. She implanted our Nanex™ NC1-SP, while using our Qube™ pro system and Mani knives. During the procedure, Dr. Astecker was visibly impressed with the lens features of Nanex™ and superior handling of the multiSert+ injector system.

And that wasn’t the only surgical film featuring HOYA Surgical Optics products. Prof. Menapace also shared his experience with Vivinex™ multiSert™ and Vivinex™ multiSert™ Toric, while presenting some of their high-performance features.

We’d like to thank Dr. Astecker and Prof. Menapace for their time and skills in bringing our product portfolio to life.

MISSED OUT?

If you didn’t manage to attend DOC 2021, all is not lost. All recorded activities, including our live surgery with Dr. Astecker, will be live for 6 weeks. Why not take a lunch break to catch up on all the goodness you missed?