Marie-José Tassignon

Emeritus Head of the Department of Ophthalmology, University hospital and University of Antwerp, Belgium

What’s been the biggest breakthrough in ophthalmology/your specific field over the last 10 years?

The intraoperative OCT was for me a revolutionary tool to visualize the anterior interface during cataract surgery. This is still the only technology that allows better understanding of the interface that was considered for a long time to be virtual. Based on this intraoperative use of the OCT we were able to describe congenital dysgenesis type of cataract, which we called AVLID – anterior vitreo-lenticular interface dysgenesis. This technology allowed us to observe AVD – anterior vitreous detachment (in contrast to PVD – posterior vitreous detachment) in 60 percent of the cataract patients from 45 years on. It allowed us then to define a model studying the impact of Wieger's ligament on accommodation.

Is there a particular tool, technological advance, or instrument you would not have been able to live without over the past 10 years?

As above, intraoperative OCT has been of great importance in my clinical research.

Do you have any strong opinions with which the rest of the field tends to disagree?

Yes, I am convinced that the bag-in-the-lens device and implantation technique is the only IOL that allows: surgeon control centration, eradicates PCO in a high percentage compared with the traditional lens implantation, optimal alignment along the patient’s visual axis (although the optimal alignment method still needs to be improved), optimal survival of the capsular bag by keeping the patient’s LEC sequestered in the periphery of the capsular bag.

What would you like to see change in ophthalmology/your subspecialty over the next 10 years – and why?

Improvement in the possibility of ophthalmologists to be educated and/or practice more easily all over the globe. Dissemination of technology would be easier and quicker.

Do you have any personal missions for the next 10 years?

I would like to implement the continuous extended depth of focus version of the bag-in-the-lens and develop a new method to treat patients with complaints of floaters, without the need for surgical vitrectomy.