A Big Year for Retina (Today)

This year marks Retina Today’s 20th anniversary! It’s hard to believe we’ve been collaborating with and educating our peers for 2 decades—and it’s been an incredible ride. The publication launched in 2006, at the dawn of anti-VEGF therapy and just as OCT was becoming a go-to imaging tool in the clinic. Now, we have second-generation anti-VEGF therapies for major retinal conditions such as diabetic retinopathy and AMD; surgically delivered gene therapy for RPE65-associated retinal dystrophy (Luxturna, Spark Therapeutics); treatments to slow the growth of intermediate AMD (Valeda, Alcon) and geographic atrophy (Izervay [Astellas] and Syfovre [Apellis]); surgically implanted genetically programmed cell therapy for macular telangiectasia type 2 (Encelto, Neurotech); sustained-release therapeutics such as the port delivery system (Susvimo, Genentech/Roche); and more. In our clinics and ORs, we have OCT angiography, intraoperative OCT, 3D heads-up displays, 27-gauge instruments, and retinal robotic surgery in clinical trials. Suffice to say, our practices look very different today than they did 20 years ago, and innovation seems to be progressing as fast as ever.

To celebrate these advances and milestones, we are asking our earliest contributors to reflect on the changes that have taken place since they first wrote for us. In the first installment of our Retina: Then and Now series, Donald J. D’Amico, MD, revisits his 2006 article on surgical approaches to retinal detachment repair. He was an early adopter of vitrectomy for primary detachments, but he notes some interesting differences in his practice patterns over the years.

We look forward to a year of reflection (on our part) and growth in the field. Who knows…perhaps some of the later Then and Now articles will tout new therapies fresh out of the pipeline. After all, we have a lot to look forward to in 2026, with up to nine phase 3 readouts on investigational tyrosine kinase inhibitors, a topical dexamethasone option, and gene therapies (for more on the pipeline, check out the November/December 2025 issue at retinatoday.com). We may also see an FDA response to Nanoscope Therapeutics’ rolling Biologics Licensing Application for its optogenetics therapy, which would be an exciting development for our field to say the least—it could mean having an option to actually restore vision for our patients with photoreceptor degeneration. We can also look forward to some big changes in our surgical tools with the introduction of the Unity Vitreoretinal Cataract system (Alcon), Virtuoso Duel (BVI), and Oertli’s OS 4 Up surgical system. This issue includes a fantastic roundup article detailing the hardware and software upgrades you can expect with these systems.

Also in this issue, experts discuss more novel tools and techniques reshaping our ORs, including scleral-fixating toric IOLs, the use of methotrexate to address proliferative vitreoretinopathy, subretinal gene therapy delivery, surgical techniques for myopic traction maculopathy, and a look at shifting treatment approaches for epiretinal membranes.

Our profession is constantly evolving, and that’s one of our favorite things about it. Please join us throughout the year as we celebrate the collaboration that takes place within each issue, reminisce a little about “the good ol’ days,” and dream about what the next 20 years will bring to our patients.