VEW 2024: Touring the retina with Dr. Steven Ferrucci

Vision Expo West 2024 hit the streets of Las Vegas, Nevada, September 18-21, and Steven Ferrucci, OD, FAAO, contributed some retinal education to the proceedings. He gave two talks: "Case files: The retina chronicles," which he presented alongside Mark Dunbar, OD, FAAO, and Mary Beth Yackey, OD; and "Ask the experts - When you are managing the retina," in which Ferrucci answered audience questions alongside Jeffry Gerson, OD, FAAO. Here, Ferrucci speaks on these topics, summarizes what he presented, and shares a few pearls for managing retinal disease.

Video transcript

Steven Ferrucci, OD, FAAO:

My name's Dr. Steve Ferrucci. I'm at the Sepulveda VA in North Hills, California. I did that lecture [Case files: The retina chronicles] in conjunction with myself, Mark Dunbar and Mary Beth Yackey. We presented a series of cases that we actually encountered in our individual practices and talked about the clinical pearls and what we could learn from those individual cases. And in that way, not only do you learn about those individual cases, but I think you can also use that knowledge to extrapolate it to other types of retinal cases and how you can take better care of your patients with retinal disease.

We each presented a couple cases of our own patients that we've seen in our practice and then how we dealt with those patients, and what we could learn from that, not only about that specific condition, but sometimes how it might relate to other conditions as well. I had a patient that had retinoschisis, and as we may know, retinoschisis is generally benign. But I think the real challenge with the retinoschisis is a diagnosis, understanding when it's a retinoschisis versus a retinal detachment because they have many similarities. I did another case about a patient that had purtscher retinopathy from acute pancreatitis following binge drinking. It lets us know – and very topical, I think, for Vegas – the dangers of binge drinking and how it can actually affect the retinas of our patients.

I did the ask the experts [Ask the experts - When you are managing the retina] with Dr. Jeff Gerson, and we actually got questions from the audience ahead of time that they could actually ask about retina topics, stuff they might be interested in. Hopefully, Jeff and I will answer those questions for them, and they can use those answers to go back into their practice, and again, use the information in a meaningful, useful way. That's the one thing that I really try to do in our lectures. We really want to be practical and give doctors a way they can use this information in their practice. The questions range from: When would you refer a nevus? When would you refer a patient with diabetic retinopathy? Is dilation the standard of care? I think my favorite question is someone asked me, ‘Why is Dr. Ferrucci much more entertaining and educational than Dr. Gerson?,’ which was very hard to answer. I think the nugget would be to really think about it, really don't panic right away. Don't just say, ‘Oh, I'm just going to refer this patient out as soon as you incur a retinal problem,’ and really think through it. Use your differential diagnosis, use technology when appropriate, whether it's an OCT, OCTA, wide field photos, whatever that technology is to help you manage that patient. And certainly, if you're uncomfortable or you feel the patient needs additional treatment, then you can infer them out. But a lot of these things we can take care of in our office with the correct thought process and correct knowledge.

I'm also on the Education Committee with my friend Dr. Mark Bloomenstein. Again, I think we've really put together a nice series of lectures here that have a wide range, whether it's anterior segment glaucoma, posterior segment contact lenses, whatever you might be interested in. And again, I think we've really tried to devise a program that's very practical for the primary care optometrist.