As we have reported here, Chicago Cornea Consultants™ is a leader in keratoconus diagnosis and treatment, including corneal cross-linking, Intacs, and keratoplasty. Recently, with the efforts of Drs Randy Epstein and Parag Majmudar, along with a number of collaborators, the National Keratoconus Institute has been organized as a consortium of optometrists and ophthlamologists dedicated to earlier keratoconus diagnosis and treatment. Essentially, this is a network of primary eye care professionals, mainly optometrists, and referral “centers of excellence,” such as Chicago Cornea Consultants™ where ophthalmologists evaluate patients sent in for possible early treatment targeted at thwarting disease progression. The patients then return for continued management, such a s contact lenses, to their local eye care provider.
From their website: “The National Keratoconus Institute is dedicated to allowing patients to have earlier diagnosis made and intervention to prevent cases from progressing to the point of need for a transplant. Though the establishment of “centers of excellence” and collaborative efforts in research and technology development, NKCI will allow more patients with diseases such as keratoconus to have access to state of the art diagnostic and treatment technologies and outcomes analysis to improve our quality of care.”
