Paediatric glaucoma - all you need to know
Please note that the planned course on 20th March 2024 has been postponed. A new date will be announced shortly
When glaucoma occurs in children, there are a multitude of aspects to consider, including information that parents are worried about, such as risk of sight loss for their children and what the immediate management should be and how to access support, advice and referral if necessary.
This hybrid course will cover all the basic aspects of this group of diseases and a look to the future in terms of genetic aspects and all the support that can be given to families.
Learning outcomes
The course will provide attendees with an overview of a disease that is not seen frequently in clinical practice but, when it presents to clinicians can be very challenging to manage.
Attendees will learn:
- An overview of the incidence, classification and types of glaucoma that can occur in children.
- Why do children develop glaucoma?
- What are the initial and long-term management options for children?
- What surgical options are available and how this differs to adult glaucoma surgery?
- What are the advances in treatment and where will be in 10 years?
Tutors
Your course tutors are:
- Mr John Brookes, Consultant Ophthalmic Surgeon (Paediatric Glaucoma)
- Miss Eleni Nikita, Consultant Ophthalmic Surgeon
- Ms Alessandra Martins, Consultant Ophthalmic Surgeon
- Professor Mariya Moosajee, Consultant Ophthalmologist
- Jean Cavanagh, Family Support Specialist, Paediatric Department
- Professor Sir Peng Khaw, Consultant Ophthalmic Surgeon
Who is this course for?
This course day is suitable for all levels of clinical staff. This includes nursing staff who look after children with glaucoma, optometrists and orthoptists who are involved in their management. It will also be appropriate for ophthalmologists at all levels, including trainees, as part of their education, glaucoma fellows who are also involved in this condition and consultants, both generalists, paediatric ophthalmologists and glaucoma specialists who come across this group of diseases in their working life.
Accreditation
A certificate of attendance will be awarded at the end of the course. CPD certifcation will be applied for, including GOC certification.
This course is kindly supported by:
No places available at the moment
Course fees
Taught by
John Brookes
John Brookes B.Sc.(Hons), MB BS, FRCOphth is a consultant ophthalmic surgeon at Moorfields Eye Hospital, London since 2004 and an honorary consultant at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children. His training involved a fellowship in both adult and paediatric glaucoma at Moorfields in 2003 and he has remained at Moorfields since. Starting in 2022, he has set up the paediatric glaucoma service at the Royal Victoria Hospital Belfast, managing children with glaucoma from the whole of Northern Ireland. Primarily a clinician, Mr Brookes now manages paediatric glaucoma full time across the three different Trusts. His interests lie in the surgical management of childhood glaucoma, and he has published his recent outcomes of 360-degree trabeculotomies, as well as the outcomes of tube surgery and laser therapy in children. He is actively involved in volunteering with the charity ORBIS, managing paediatric cases in China, Mongolia, India, Vietnam and Bangladesh and his fundraising has included 5 marathons for eye charities.
Mariya Moosajee
Professor Mariya Moosajee is a clinician scientist, she is a Consultant Ophthalmologist in Genetic Eye Disease at Moorfields Eye Hospital and Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, Professor of Molecular Ophthalmology at UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, and Group Leader of Ocular Genomics and Therapeutics at the Francis Crick Institute in London. She graduated with First Class Honours in Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics in 2000, Medicine (MBBS) in 2003, and was awarded her PhD in Molecular Ophthalmology in 2009 all from Imperial College London. She has been awarded over 30 international and national prizes for her research and has over 100 peer-reviewed scientific publications. She has been named in top 100 most influential people in ophthalmology in The Ophthalmologist Power List 2022, top most influential female figures in 2021 and in the top 10 Champions for Change in 2019. Her clinical focus is providing a genomic ophthalmology service for children and adults affected with pan-ocular genetic eye disease. Her clinical research involves deep phenotyping and natural history studies on molecularly confirmed rare disease patient cohorts, including Usher syndrome, to understand disease progression and define outcome metrics for clinical trials. In the laboratory, she is advancing our understanding of the molecular basis of ocular maldevelopment and inherited retinal dystrophies, using zebrafish disease models and human induced pluripotent stem cell derived retinal organoids. This permits the identification of potential therapeutic targets for development of treatment strategies, including small molecule drugs and non-viral gene therapy for USH2A retinopathy. Professor Moosajee is the President of the UK Eye Genetics Group, Research Lead for the Education Committee and elected member of the Academic Committee of the Royal College of Ophthalmologists, and President of Women in Vision UK.
Jean Cavanagh
Jean Cavanagh is a Family Support Specialist in the Paediatric Department at Moorfields Eye Hospital. She has been in this role for 14 years and prior to that, was a teacher in a specialist school for children with a vision impairment for 13 years. Jean was Head of a Vision Impairment Service for 20 years. Jean is also qualified as a Specific Learning Difficulties Teacher, a Habilitation Officer, Counsellor, and an Autogenic Therapist. Jean is passionate about her role at Moorfields. Her aim when she meets the families is to offer them practical advice about how they can help their child to reach their full potential and to ensure they leave the hospital with hope and an understanding of the support that is available. It’s vitally important that she develops a rapport with the families so that they feel supported and have trust in the services that the hospital provides. Jean is a keen cyclist, swimmer, and saxophonist.
Miss Alessandra Martins
Miss Alessandra Martins MB BS (Hons), PhD(Sydney), MRCOphth, FRANZCO is a consultant ophthalmologist with expertise in the diagnosis and management of both adult and paediatric glaucoma. She is based at Moorfields Eye Hospital City Road and the Richard Desmond Children's Eye Centre. Previously, she has worked as a glaucoma consultant in both the UK and Australia, jointly at both Moorfields and the Royal Free London as well as Sydney Eye Hospital, Sydney. She is an honorary Clinical Senior Lecturer at the University of Sydney and she has previously spent time researching the early detection of glaucoma using innovative perimetric and topographic electrodiagnostic techniques and was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) from the University of Sydney for this work. She has a special interest in the surgical management of complex secondary adult and paediatric glaucomas.
Eleni Nikita
Eleni Nikita is a Consultant Ophthalmic Surgeon at Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, specializing in adult and paediatric glaucoma surgery. She finished her core ophthalmic training and PhD in Athens. She then completed medical and surgical glaucoma fellowships at Manchester Royal Eye Hospital and Moorfields Eye Hospital, where she gained extensive experience in the medical and surgical management of all glaucoma subspecialties and complex cataract surgery. She served for 3 years as a clinical director and led the development of novel schemes for glaucoma management in the community and virtually and has an ongoing role in the education and training of doctors and other health professionals into their expanded clinical roles.
Professor Sir Peng Tee Khaw
Sir Peng Tee Khaw is Professor of Glaucoma and Consultant Surgeon at UCL and Moorfields Eye Hospital. He trained in general medicine, and then in ophthalmology with Roger Hitchings and in the paediatric glaucoma service with Noel Rice. Sir Peng has a special interest in the surgical treatment of glaucoma in children and young adults. Inspired by children who failed surgery, his group have developed & improved surgical techniques (Moorfields Safer Surgery System) based on laboratory and clinical studies and refined anti-scarring approaches to increase the efficacy and safety of glaucoma filtering surgery nationally and internationally. He has proposed the 10-10-10 goal for surgery (pressure of 10mmHg lasting 10 years and taking 10 minutes) and are helping develop and refining microdevices, (including the Preserflo) and improving anti-scarring technologies including beta-radiation to prevent scarring to take this goal closer to reality. They are developing a novel stem cell with Prof Astrid Limb (Moorfields-IO Müller MIO-M1 stem cell), which is undergoing safety testing being developed for optic nerve regeneration. He led the case for the inclusion of eye examinations including OCT in the UK Biobank with Prof Paul Foster, aiding the identification of genes for glaucoma, myopia and retinal disease, many of which have relevance for childhood glaucoma. He has published over 600 papers, chapters and books, including on childhood glaucoma. Sir Peng has delivered over 35 national and international named lectures, and has won over 12 international prizes and awards. He was the first UK President of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (USA). He has raised grants of over US$150 million, including the building of the world’s largest ophthalmology clinical research centre and the Richard Desmond children’s eye hospital at Moorfields. He was the founder director and is the co-director of the UK National institute for Health Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Centre at Moorfields Eye Hospital and UCL, and led three five-year renewals. He was elected to the UK Academy of Medical Sciences in 2002, became a NIHR Senior Investigator in 2009 and was knighted in in 2013 for services to ophthalmology. He passionately believes that scientific research has and will enable us to achieve new and better treatments to change lives for the better.