CHFT's ophthalmologists have won first prize, beating competition from across the UK at the Royal Society of Medicine's annual award for medical students and trainees original research.

Our team's paper, comparing two drugs used to treat the common sight problem wet macular degeneration, won the top honour.

This is the first study to evaluate the real world impact of choosing Aflibercept PRN instead of Ranibizumab PRN as the first line therapy in treatment-naive patients with active nvARMD

The project demonstrated that reduced numbers of injections did not affect treatment outcomes impressing the judges and CHFT emerged top in a field which included experts from leading eye centres such as Moorfields, The Western Eye Hospital and Kings College, London.

FY2 Mark Lane presented the work at the event in London in June 2015 on behalf of the team.

Consultant superviser for the project, Mrs. Rehna Khan, said: " We are extremely proud . This is a tremendous result for our team and for CHFT at such prestigious awards and where the country's top specialist eye centres were involved."

The two drugs on trial were Lucentis and Eylea. Over a 12-month trial the team reported a reduced number of eylea injections compared to lucentis and the landmark Eylea VIEW studies. Instead of administering the drug every two months, it was given as and when it was needed yet this did not impact on patients' sight.

Dr Khan, added: " The visual gains were comparable even though the patients needed less injections. It can be a very traumatic treatment procedure so to be able to have fewer without a negative impact is better for our patients."

The team will go to Nice in September 2015 to present a further 4 projects from CHFT ophthalmology department to an international audience of retina specialists. Mark Lane will be starting a fellowship at MIT in the USA studying OCT imaging in uveitis patients and we wish him the best of luck.