Dear Readers,

For 2011 we propose an overview, modest though it may be, of all the progress made over this first decade of the 21st century in terms of Vision and its improvement - subjects of concern to us all. We have asked international experts in their field to contribute to our two 2011 issues that are dedicated to this theme.

Jean-Louis Bourges, Paris, shows us that new advances made with the cornea, now considered as routine and having existed for years, were actually only discovered in 2000.

Again on the cornea, Jean-Pierre Chartrand, Montreal, offers a relatively exhaustive review of refractive surgery techniques and describes how successive developments led, between 2000-2010 to elimination of certain technologies and the fine-tuning of others; and further innovations are on their way.

Jean-Philippe Nordmann, Paris, reveals new glaucoma detection methods, as practised in a dedicated centre, using a plateau that is unique in Europe.

On this same subject, Julián García Sánchez, Madrid, describes for us the fundamental developments that have taken place over the past twenty years in the treatment of glaucoma thanks to the performance of various multi-centre studies.

Amanda Alvarez and Christine Wildsoet, USA, provide an update on the latest progress in the combat against myopia, a subject to which research work has been committed for over 50 years but where progress still remains only very modest and slow.

Timothy Fricke and Brian Holden, Australia, show that the extraordinary ambition to eliminate the lack of visual correction of refractive defects worldwide by 2020 will demand major efforts and that NGOs alone will never achieve this goal; it is high time for more effort to be devoted to this work.

As for the compensation of refractive defects causing presbyopia, Bruno Decreton, Essilor International, writes about the new technologies that now enable us to design, manufacture and adapt personalised corrective lenses.

Niels E. de Vries and Rudy MMA Nuijts from the Netherlands focus on the treatment of presbyopia too, examining the positive and negative aspects of the multifocal intra-ocular implants currently available.

And, in keeping with tradition, we conclude with an Art and Vision article, this time by Vjekoslav Dorn, from Croatia, who looks at the work of the painter and miniaturist Don Guilio Clovio and his eye diseases.

For this new year we are pleased and delighted to welcome to join the eminent members of our Scientific Reading Committee, Professor Farhad Hafezi from the University Hospitals of Geneva, Switzerland.

As we do from time to time we would ask you please to complete and return the short questionnaire you will find at the back of this issue. Thank you in advance for your kind cooperation in this respect.

EDITORIAL N°64 by Marc ALEXANDRE

Medical scientific file

Non-medical scientific file

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