2019 posts

Here are all the posts from 2019

  • Microscopy December 2019 - For our final session of the year yesterday, we welcomed Alice (corneal service), Majid (medical student), Clare (laboratory) and Beatrice (ocular oncology). It was great seeing how everyone brought different perspectives to the cases we discussed. We started with an overview of basic histology of the eye, and a chat about the usefulness of PAS… Continue reading Microscopy December 2019
  • Microscopy November 2019 - During yesterday’s microscopy session, we chatted about relative frequency of uveal melanoma in humans vs cats and dogs. I didn’t know that certain dog breeds with higher numbers of melanocytes are prone to oral melanomas! Just came across this recent open access review of canine melanomas as potential models for human melanomas: Canine Melanomas as… Continue reading Microscopy November 2019
  • Microscopy September 2019 - We were a bit short of attendees at yesterday’s microscopy session—it seems that the dreaded lurgy is going around, now that summer has drawn to a close. Still, we had an interesting discussion about various aspects of eye pathology including the two cases below. I’ll post a few of my “diagnostic process” thoughts while going… Continue reading Microscopy September 2019
  • Ophthalmology Summer School notes - This is a quick follow-up post after the talk I gave on eye pathology earlier today. I hope those who attended found it helpful. If you’d like to give me feedback – either as a comment below or by using the contact form, I’d welcome suggestions for next year’s course. My personal feeling is that… Continue reading Ophthalmology Summer School notes
  • Microscopy July 2019 - For yesterday’s session, we welcomed regulars from Moorfields Eye Hospital and the Royal Veterinary College as well as two new attendees. Shivani is visiting us from Perth, Western Australia, and Atul is a neuropathology trainee. To start with, we had a brief chat about how uveal melanomas are genetically different from conjunctival melanomas. I had… Continue reading Microscopy July 2019
  • Microscopy June 2019 - Yesterday’s session had a variety of attendees, including Moorfields ophthalmologists, a medical student on elective, our regular veterinary pathologists Simon and Alejandro, and a visiting pathologist from Australia. Simon brought a feline eye with a ciliary body adenoma. This is a rare entity in humans (and not to be confused with Fuchs’ adenoma which I’ve… Continue reading Microscopy June 2019
  • Microscopy May 2019 - This month, Simon and Alejandro from the Royal Veterinary College were able to join us. Congratulations to Alejandro on his new appointment! Alejandro brought along a globe with a diagnosis of equine recurrent uveitis (ERU). As you might expect from the name, there’s a chronic inflammatory infiltrate within the iris and ciliary body. Interestingly, there… Continue reading Microscopy May 2019
  • Microscopy April 2019 - For yesterday’s session we welcomed Moorfields ophthalmologists who are currently working in vitreoretinal surgery, medical retina and paediatrics and strabismus. These aren’t subspecialties which generate a lot of specimens, but we included a few archival cases of vitreous cytology and intraocular biopsies. We started with a quick review of eyelid and globe structure as seen… Continue reading Microscopy April 2019
  • Microscopy March 2019 - For yesterday’s teaching session, we welcomed Moorfields Fellows from medical retina and vitreoretinal services as well as Olivia, who is doing a PhD in corneal genetics. We had a case-based discussion around macular and Fuchs’ dystrophy and a chat about parasitic diseases in ophthalmology including Loa loa – long story! Over the last month, I’ve… Continue reading Microscopy March 2019
  • Moorfields HDT – February 2019 - No live microscopy session this month as I was teaching the ophthalmology trainees at Moorfields Eye Hospital. The theme for the afternoon was cancer. Cancer cases form a relatively small proportion of our workload in the Department of Eye Pathology (around 10%) but the care of patients with cancer has certain aspects that don’t apply… Continue reading Moorfields HDT – February 2019
  • Microscopy January 2019 - Yesterday we welcomed Simon, Alejandro and Oscar from the Royal Veterinary College for our monthly case discussion as well as Sam and Manuela from our lab. Alejandro brought a couple of interesting canine globes. The first was a massive intraocular haemorrhage following phacoemulsification surgery for cataract. The second was an iris melanoma. Interestingly, one of… Continue reading Microscopy January 2019