Live Reaction

A packed early-morning “Women in Retina” networking breakfast set the tone for the week, as EURETINA President Anat Loewenstein moderated an open discussion with Prof Tunde Peto (Northern Ireland) and Prof Catherine Creuzot-Garcher (France). What began as reflections on whether women-focused initiatives are even necessary quickly crystallised into a set of practical levers—from how we talk about “help” at home, to how we invite (and accept) moderation roles, to measurable targets for programme balance.

View photos of all the latest around the EURETINA 2025 conference.

Cleverly titled “Eye Openers”, this session was a new addition to the meeting programme in 2025 that featured leading vitreoretinal surgeons presenting videos of their management of challenging, high stakes cases. Case discussions and questions to the presenters by the other speakers and session chairs, Dr. Nicole Eter (Germany) and Dr. Patricia Udaondo Mirete (Spain), provided additional learnings about do’s and don’t for surgery in these situations.

Attendees at a EURETINA 2025 early morning session heard an update on ongoing studies being managed with support from the European Vision Clinical Research network (EVICR.net).

Dr. José Cunha-Vaz, EVICR.net founder and president, said that years ago, upon returning to Europe after spending time in the United States, he was struck by the lack of organisational support that is required to plan and execute high quality clinical research.

Speakers at Euretina Session 5 presented next generation approaches to drug delivery. Opening the session, co-chair Dr. Grazia Pertile (Italy) said: “We are living in a very exciting time. We hope that we will be able to treat most of the retinal conditions in the future, including genetic diseases, but we also feel the burden of frequent injections. Today we are going to explore what is possible now and what will be possible beyond vitreoretinal injection.

2025 marked the tenth year of the EuroVeRsion International surgical video case contest. Entrants into the competition are nominated by a senior vitreoretinal surgeon, must be <40 years of age, in the first three years of their career, and have participated in the case featured in their 3-minute video.

Artificial intelligence (AI) applications in retinal surgery have been discussed in various contexts by numerous speakers throughout EURETINA 2025. Attendees at the last Euretina Session on Friday afternoon, however, heard a series of talks dedicated entirely to AI.

Introducing the session on new treatments in ocular oncology, co-chair Dr Jens Kiilgard (Denmark) noted that at the start of his career in ophthalmology, enucleation or radiation were the only therapeutic options for patients with ocular tumours. “As we will hear today, there has been a revolution of treatment for both primary and systemic disease,” he said.

View photos of all the latest around the EURETINA 2025 conference.

Following directly after EURETINA session 1, the second EURETINA session of EURETINA 2025 continued with a focus on age-related macular degeneration (AMD) but shifted to the topic of neovascular disease.