Josep Joan Escobar awarded with the 2023 honorary award of the Club de la Màcula

Dos de Maig Hospital is the first Catalan center to obtain this, while positioning itself alongside notable international references such as the research group of Dr. Yanuzzi of New York, considered the father of the current medical retina.

To learn more about what this recognition has entailed and the research work that is being carried out, we spoke to Josep Joan Escobar:

- What has this recognition entailed?

– It is the recognition of the great work done by the research group of Ophthalmology Dos de Maig-CSI in the last twelve years.

– What are the characteristics of the Ophthalmology research group Dos de Maig – CSI?

– The emerging Ophthalmology research group constitutes one of the most relevant groups in terms of research in the Comprehensive Health Consortium (supported by data from the Research Committee) in terms of number of principal investigators, PhDs, number of publications indexed in Q1 journals, number of clinical trials, participation in national networks with FIS grant (Health Research Fund of the Ministry of Science and Innovation).

The Ophthalmology research group in the last twelve years has carried out more than 40 clinical trials related to advances in the treatment of retinal and macular diseases such as age-related macular degeneration, diabetic macular edema, diabetic retinopathy or retinal vascular obstructions. All these essays are developed under the CSI research led by Dr. Montse Martín and with the coordination of Idibell.

Our research group has led many of these trials and has been recognized worldwide for the quality of the data it provides. It has also been one of the three groups selected for the development of an artificial intelligence model (CARDS Trial) for the detection of diabetic retinopathy. It goes without saying that all this effort and a job well done has put Ophthalmology at the CSI and, more specifically, Hospital Dos de Maig, on the map in recent years.

- Talking to you, you always notice that the success of this group rests on the great professionals who make it up...

- It is clear that to carry out all this very rigorous scientific work, the research teams must be made up of various qualified professionals and we have them, such as optometrists with international certification, data coordinators of the electronic international data notebooks, pharmacologists doctors with scientific training, sub-researchers masked i unmasked and principal investigators.
- Have the results of these trials led to improvements for patients?

– These trials, especially type II and type III, have resulted in the development of new therapies that are responsible today for the reduction of blindness worldwide. To give some examples, we can cite the new intraocular devices for the sustained release of medication or gene therapy among others.

These clinical trials collect those patients without any possibility of cure with the usual standard treatment and being the only possibility that these patients can avoid blindness as it happens with oncological patients and the possible cures that clinical trials provide.

- Would you like to tell us something else?

– As Head of Service, Principal Investigator of the Ophthalmology group and recipient of the 2023 Honor Award, I would like to add that this recognition is dedicated to all these people at the CSI who work in research, because thanks to them we will a better world. It is the first time that a Catalan retinologist has been awarded and it is a pride for me to be able to give back everything that Hospital Dos de Maig has given me.