OPT Visionary - Summer 2014

PAGE 28 Research Review Faculty Research Highlight Modulating Ocular/Retinal Blood Flow and Visual Function in Retinitis Pigmentosa A fter being diagnosed with a disabling, chronic disease such as retinitis pigmen- tosa (RP), there is nothing more disheart- ening than for the patient to hear that nothing can be done to treat it. The tradi- tional model for translational research involves iden- tifying and applying knowledge from the bench to the bedside, as discoveries are transferred from the lab- oratory to the clinical study and to the patient. How- ever, this model also can proceed in the opposite direction, with research that is conceived from patient observations leading to clinical and/or laboratory- based investigations. Currently, there is not enough research focused on addressing the needs identified by patients, as would originate from clinical practice. In addition to patient- physician interactions, a potentially useful approach for obtaining the patient’s perspective is through social networking sites or online message-board forums, such as the RPlist on which individuals with RP dis- cuss their disease and latest research. One of NSUCO’s newest faculty members, Dr. Ava Bittner, is passionate about considering patients’ ex- periences to help guide her research proposals, as she values the importance of taking the patients’ per- spective into account to design studies that are rele- vant to their interests. About seven years ago, she used the RPlist forum to administer an online survey as part of her research to obtain responses from 96 patients regarding their use of alternative therapies. Surprisingly, she found that 42 percent of respondents had tried acupuncture, and of them, 61 percent indi- cated a subjective improvement in vision. This was an intriguing finding, but the peer-re- viewed literature had no reports of clinical studies in- volving acupuncture for RP conducted in the Western world, and only two case series published in the 1980s. A more-recent basic science research study, however, showed increased neuroprotective factors in the retina and preserved retinal thickness in RCS rats with RP-like retinal degeneration after receiving electroacupuncture. A FORTUITOUS INTRODUCTION A young woman with RP who received acupuncture from the clinical practice of Andy Rosenfarb, ND, a naturopathic physician and licensed acupuncturist in New Jersey, noted dramatic improvements in her vision By Ava Katherine Bittner, O.D., Ph.D., FAAO, Associate Professor