Thyroid Eye Disease: What Have We Learned Through Research?

Alliance for Eye and Vision Research (AEVR) continues its series of educational briefings on exciting new developments in eye and vision research by recognizing the first annual Thyroid Eye Disease Awareness Week, November 16–20, 2020.

Thyroid Eye Disease (TED) is a serious, debilitating, and vision-threatening rare autoimmune disease where the immune system attacks muscles and other tissue behind and around the eyes. People living with TED frequently experience long-term functional, psychosocial, and economic burdens, including inability to work and perform activities of daily living that can result in depression and accelerated mortality. Because TED is progressive, early management and treatment of the disease can be critical.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH), through its National Eye Institute (NEI), is funding research into TED, as is private industry, to develop new therapies. Although past treatments for TED have consisted of corticosteroids and ocular lubricants which only treat the symptoms, in 2020, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first and only approved therapy for TED. As a result, physicians and TED patients may no longer have to wait for progression to inactivity and for inflammation to subside to perform complex surgical procedures that may be associated with additional complications.

This congressional briefing hosted by AEVR and supported by the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology will feature guest speakers Gary Lelli, M.D., Vice Chair of Ophthalmology, Weill Cornell Medicine and Christine G., Thyroid Eye Disease Patient Advocate.