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Editorial IGR 1-1
Dear Reader,
It is with immense pleasure and enthusiasm that we present this first issue of the International Glaucoma Review expert edition. IGR is a journal for glaucomatologists from all over the world. It aims at being a forum for the world's Glaucoma Societies.
IGR expects to provide:
- Increased awareness of the activities of fellow Glaucoma Societies by means of cooperation and reporting.
- Efficient and easy availability, at four-monthly intervals, of virtually all glaucoma literature worldwide, with a critical review of selected papers.
The abstracts will appear in a classified manner under more than 120 headings (keywords). IGR will be published three times a year, with each issue covering the literature of the preceding four months. In this first issue, to be published in mid-June, the literature from the first four months of 1999, as published in the major ophthalmological journals, is abstracted. The delay between papers appearing in April and publication is minimal. For less obvious (often non-ophthalmological) sources, the delay may be somewhat longer.
The uniqueness of IGR is its attempted completeness, its classification, and the Editor's Selection. IGR has the most complete collection of abstracts from the glaucoma literature which are otherwise not available, certainly not within the same time span. It is the only journal that presents a four-monthly critical review of selected glaucoma literature.
The Editor's Selection will be written in turn by Bruce Shields, Yoshi Kitazawa and myself.
Furthermore, IGR will contain announcements and reports from the Glaucoma Societies involved. IGR expert edition will also include complete selected papers, reports of meetings, interviews, opinions, hypotheses, reviews, and anything else considered to be of interest to the members of the glaucoma societies. It is planned to provide a calendar of the dates of the various meetings of the Glaucoma Societies.
The names of the members of the executive committees of the societies and the addresses of the secretaries will appear in the opening pages of the journal. Each Glaucoma Society has a representative on the Editorial Board, who will be responsible for announcements and reports, and for any other information concerning the societies.
IGR will be distributed to all members of the affiliated Glaucoma Societies free of charge.
As the reader may know, the European Glaucoma Society, later joined by the American Glaucoma Society and the Japanese Glaucoma Society, has been publishing Glaucoma Abstracts International since 1983, with Bruce Shields, Yoshi Kitazawa and myself as editors.
After 15 years of faithful sponsoring, Merck decided that it was time to withdraw. IGR expert edition is now supported by an educational grant from Pharmacia Corporation, who will leave the editorial policy entirely to the discretion of the Editorial Board. The editors have decided to enlarge the scope of the journal and to involve Glaucoma Societies throughout the world, together with their members. The classification has also been revised.
It is planned that all or part of IGR may also appear on the website of the Glaucoma Societies. An abbreviated version may appear on the AAO website.
At this time IGR is supported by the American Glaucoma Society, Asian-Oceanic Glaucoma Society, Australia and New Zealand Glaucoma Club, European Glaucoma Society, Indian Glaucoma Society, International Glaucoma Society, Japanese Glaucoma Society, Latin America Glaucoma Society, and South African Glaucoma Society. We are presently in touch with the Pan Arab Glaucoma Society and the Chinese Glaucoma Society.
This issue of IGR contains reports from the American Glaucoma Society and the Australian and New Zealand Glaucoma Club. Furthermore, it includes a report on the Gullstrand meeting, a one-day limited-subject expert review and discussion meeting, together with impressions from ARVO 1999 (by Drs. Alward, Fitzke, Harris and Kagemann, Levin, Orgul, Palmberg and Siriwardona and Khaw), at which over 300 glaucoma papers and posters were presented, and a report from Georg Michelson on a symposium on 'Autonomic Innervation and Microcirculation in the Eye: Implications for Glaucoma Pathophysiology', and a reprinted editorial by Stephen Drance on the 'Collaborative Normal Tension Glaucoma Study'.
The Editors' Selection - IGR's icing on the cake - contains, among other things, reviews on the quality of glaucoma management: involve the patient; news on genetics; another theory on the pathogenesis of glaucoma; flow and age; SITA practice (see Flash) the potential role and non-role of optic nerve head imaging, the inevitable vascular risk factors with discussion, not forgetting parapapillary atrophy; the place of latanoprost in glaucoma management; and non-perforating filtering surgery (three editorials and five papers are included in this issue).
The reader may find that, after reading IGR, he has a good feeling about what is taking place in glaucoma. And that is more than enough! I hope you will enjoy it!
Erik L. Greve
