Real-World Evidence Studies on Cataract Surgery and Corneal Diseases

Dear Colleagues,

Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are widely acknowledged for providing exceptionally strong evidence. Although RCTs are considered the gold standard in comparing the safety and efficacy of interventions, e.g., new drugs or treatment modalities, these studies are often limited by a short duration, small sample size, selective patient enrollment criteria, and very controlled settings. Moreover, according to the Declaration of Helsinki, any patient should receive the best proven intervention; therefore, it might be difficult to implement randomization in ocular surgery procedures.

To estimate the effectiveness of care practices in the real-world, alternative approaches are needed. Data on everyday practices need to be measured and evaluated routinely and non-selectively. Studies in the clinical practice setting are often termed as “real-world evidence” or “real-world data” studies. Real-world evidence (RWE) studies are feasible in providing estimates in large cohorts and expanded time frame among patients with variable comorbidities and care provision. Electronic databases allow information to assess long-term outcomes and endpoints and rare adverse events to provide robust evidence-based data on clinical practices. RWE data are increasingly exploited to support regulatory and administrative decision making and to guide best clinical practices to deal with the challenges in everyday care, but often the data remain scarce.

In this Special Issue of Life, titled "Real-World Evidence Studies on Cataract Surgery and Corneal Diseases", we aim to provide high-quality RWE data on general populations supported by diverse clinical situations. This Special Issue concentrates on the natural history of disease, prevalence, incidence, unmet medical needs, current treatment patterns and standard of care, patient outcomes and health economics, studies on rare adverse events and high-risk groups, and secondary end-point studies with a longer duration on cataract surgery and corneal diseases.

Dr. Raimo Tuuminen
Dr. Sohee Jeon
Guest Editors

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