VN September 2023

Vetnuus | September 2023 38 The first mission of DVOS is to create a platform for the general practitioner veterinary surgeon to improve their ophthalmological knowledge and enable them to deal with ocular cases with more confidence. This will be done with online courses allowing participants to download course material that will include written notes as well as narrated PowerPoint presentations. The first small animal course comprises of 240 pages and the PowerPoint lectures are 20 hours in total excluding a guest lecture on SARDS. I shall also make surgical videos available covering some common surgical procedures. The course is CPD accredited with the South African Veterinary council for a total of 23 CPD points. The secondmission is toprovidea service to thepracticingveterinarianofferingspecialist advice regardingproblematic cases. More information regarding both of these aims are available on the website: www.dvos.co.za The main resistance to uveoscleral outflow is the ciliary muscle. Prostaglandin analogues remodel the ECM of the ciliary muscle, subsequently increasing uveoscleral outflow. Prostaglandin FP-receptors are highly concentrated in the longitudinal ciliary muscle and retina of humans, dogs and bovines but not cats. The intense miosis observed in cats treated with prostaglandin analogues is attributable to the presence of exquisitely well- coupled FP receptors in the iris sphincter muscle of cats. The result of this is that although prostaglandin analogues are an extremely important potentially vision-saving product for dogs the same effect is lacking in cats and therefore not indicated in feline patients. Conclusion Glaucoma in cats remains an extremely frustrating condition to treat and at the end of the day, the only really effective product is CAIs namely brinzolamide and dorzolamide. For eyes that are irreversibly blind, enucleation warrants strong consideration. Enucleation is generally preferred over evisceration with intrascleral prosthesis placement as the success rate of the latter procedure may be lower in cats than in dogs. v Technical I Ophthalmology Column