WELCOME TO THE UK CROSS-LINKING CONSORTIUM WEBSITE
The UK Cross-linking Consortium was established in 2013 with funding from the Medical Research Council with the aims of:
- Establishing a code of best practice for corneal cross-linking in order to standardise the treatment and its measurement outcomes.
- Providing information and advice to national bodies about developments in corneal cross-linking.
- Providing a forum for ophthalmologists and vision scientists to develop research collaborations and co-ordinated multi-centre studies.
The 2016 UK-Cross-linking Consortium (UK-CXL) Meeting was held in Birmingham on the 24th May as a satellite to the Royal College of Ophthalmologist Annual Congress. The meeting was attended by over 40 ophthalmologists and vision scientists, including 20 of our UK Cross-linking Consortium members. Click here to read the full meeting report.
A National corneal cross-linking register and keratoconus monitoring tool has been developed by the UK Cross-linking Consortium, with support from the The Royal College of Ophthalmologists’ Informatics and Audit Sub-committee. Following a successful trial at Moorfields Eye Hospital in 2017, the Keratoconus Module is now available to all users of OpenEyes v1.18/2.0 for monitoring patients before and after cross-linking. The data set will provide a basis for clinical care, outcome analysis, clinical audit, revalidation, and research.
The potential of ultraviolet-A light (UVA) to cross-link tissues in the presence of the non-toxic photosensitising agent riboflavin had been known for some time, but it was not until 1998 that a group from Dresden suggested it as a potential therapeutic treatment to strengthen the corneal stroma….Read more
Cross-linking the cornea using riboflavin and ultraviolet A light has been widely adopted, refined and applied in a range of corneal surgeries and pathologies where the strength of the cornea might be compromised….Read more
Click here to keep up-to-date with current research related to corneal cross-linking.
‘Epi-off’ collagen cross-linking has now been approved for general use in the NHS. This should mean that CXL will become available at more than the handful of hospitals that currently offer it on the NHS and/or that it will be easier for patients to be referred to one of the hospitals that do provide it. Click here to see the current National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines for epithelium-off and epithelium-on cross-linking.
