Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to inform you that the 12th edition of the ROL Congress (www.refractiveonline.com) and the 11th Societa’ Italiana Cellule Staminali e Superficie Ocular (SICSSO) Congress that will be held in conjunction the last weekend of June 2012 in beautiful ROME.

This joint conference leverages the great turn out and active participation from the 2011 edition and particularly as the two foundations of refractive and cataract surgery continuously embrace the same themes each year and with advancing scientific evolutions in areas such as corneal and surgery complications. The most remarkable aspect has been high-level experts from around the world from one sector becoming experts in another.

This collaboration has been sought out for a number of reasons. In particular, the diagnostics of corneal pathology has become the common diagnostics used in refractive surgery through the use of similar instrumentations such as topography, tomography, endothelial microscopy, etc. In parallel, the correction of complications in refractive surgery require competence of the corneal surgeon such as issues arising from ectasia in Lasik resulting in a transplant and the prevention of certain ectasia pathologies with the corneal cross linking, which has also become common in refractive surgery.

An implant using Intraocular Cataract Lenses (IOL) after cataracts, in complicated cases, surgery involves difficult calculations similar to cataracts after Lasik. In fact, the biomedical calculations are the same that a corneal surgeon must take into consideration when carrying out cataract surgery after a transplant. The knowledge of the cornea and its influence on the biomedical formula is also the same.

The overarching aim of this congress is designed to create a spirit of collaboration, compare strategies from different points of view, establish synergies and converge efforts, all in a friendly and professional workingenvironment. Moreover, there will be practical courses open to a limited number of people on specific subjects and wet labs in order to put into practice the theoretical notations that have matured throughout the conference.

Yours sincerely,

Paolo Vinciguerra and Vincenzo Sarnicola
President Refr@ctive.on-line and SICSSO society