New Method Promotes Detection of Blinding Eye Disease

MCHENRY, Ill., Jan. 7, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- There is a disease that is ruining the vision of over a hundred thousand young people in the U.S. who go undiagnosed and untreated. Most don't even know its name. It's called keratoconus and it causes worsening visual blurring and astigmatism. An FDA-monitored clinical trial, http://clinicaltrials.gov/show/NCT01325298, now in its second year under the direction of Robert L. Epstein, MD at the Mercy Center for Corrective Eye Surgery in McHenry, Illinois, shows that the worsening of keratoconus appears to be stopped in nearly all people by a simple office treatment called crosslinking.

Key to stopping the disease is detection. Recently, a means was developed by Dr. Epstein and two others, for earlier detection of the subtle eye changes that mark the disease of keratoconus. That method of early detection, published in the December 2012 issue of the Journal of Refractive Surgery, will hopefully accelerate the effort to eventually eradicate the disabling disease of keratoconus.

People who think they may be developing the disease of keratoconus should have a rapid and painless test called corneal mapping. More information on keratoconus can be found at www.ICanSee.com.

Contact:
Robert L. Epstein, MD
(815) 363-2020

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SOURCE Mercy Center for Corrective Eye Surgery