Q&A: Peter Kiraly the value of the EBO course and exam at EURETINA 2025

Photo of Peter Kiraly, PhD, at the 2025 EURETINA meeting held in Paris, France

Peter Kiraly, PhD, discussed the EURETINA EBO exam, a rigorous retinal subspecialty assessment for ophthalmologists with the Eye Care Network at the 2025 EURETINA meeting. He explained the exam's 2-part structure, covering topics from AMD to inherited retinal dystrophies. Kiraly highlighted the importance of vitreoretinal background for retinal specialists and shared insights about the YOURS committee's role in supporting young ophthalmologists. In the interview, he also explored emerging ocular gene therapies as potential game-changers in treating retinal conditions, offering hope for more sustainable treatments.

Note: The following conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.

Ophthalmology Times: Can you share what the EBO exam is and how it provides valuable insights for those who study for it?

Peter Kiraly, MD: The EBO-EURETINA exam is a retina sub-speciality exam that is being organized by EURETINA. And actually the candidates who pass the exam have to show very good knowledge of retinal conditions, up to the very high standards of EURETINA. So it's a very good reference to have that exam done. Now, it consists of 2 parts. So the first part is answering questions, and then the second part, if you pass the first part, it's like an oral examination where you have clinical cases, clinical scenarios, and you have to deliver a very good clinical decision making. Now, obviously the exam covers all the retinal topics, let's say, from AMD to inherited retinal dystrophies, but also vitreoretinal surgery.

So basically, at this EURETINA, we're delivering a course about EBO. So the EBO course that will help prepare future candidates for the exam. Retinal specialists, even though they're not doing vitreoretinal procedures, need to have some VR background. If we go back to visual macula interface disorders, we think about macula holes have retinal membranes. They need to know which patients to refer for surgery, which patients they can monitor, and which patients they can discharge. If we think about wet AMD, and wet AMD is treated by every retinal specialist, obviously, they develop bleeds. So they have a big macular bleed. They can think about doing pneumatic displacement as well. So these are just few examples, but there are many, many more.

OT: What is your opinion on the value of vitreoretinal training for ophthalmologists and retina specialists?

Kiraly: So yeah, I think that really retinal specialists should know, should have some VR background to be able to deliver excellent care for our joint retinal patients. Indeed, vitreoretinal subspecialty is very competitive, and sometimes it's difficult to get hands-on experience. So the training differs from country-to-country. On the European continent, usually VR training starts after the residency, but in other like commonwealth countries, in the UK, Australia, the training starts during the residency. And then there are these fellowships are 1- or 2-year programs where where young ophthalmologists can really get a lot of hands-on experience of vitreoretinal surgery. So maybe, if you feel stuck and you can't do VR, maybe the mobility is the key, and maybe you should do vitreoretinal fellowship abroad.

OT: Can you share more about the YOURS committee and how it working in conjunction with the EURETINA congress?

Kiraly: So the YOURS committee, consists of 6 young ophthalmologists, young retinal committee members. Basically, we represent an interest of all the YOURS members. In the Congress, as you said, we prepare YOURS sessions. Then throughout the year we also have, we also do a lot of webinars, so 2 to 3 webinars per year that are very interactive with a lot of questions and answers. About 2, 3 months ago, we had podcast about fellowship, about international fellowships. Also sometimes we ask our, YOURS members, to submit some cases, interesting cases, and one of these interesting cases, cases will be presented this year at EURETINA. We basically try to talk a lot to our to our to other YOURS members, and then we also try to see which sessions are well attended, which sessions are not that well attended. We also send out questionaries, and then we get feedback, which top secret topics are very interesting, and which topics a bit less. Then we sometimes tweak a little bit the program for the next year so that is a bit more interesting for our YOURS audience.

OT: How do you think that advances in treatments will impact the future of the retina field?

Kiraly: I think that it's very difficult for monthly, 2 monthly injections to be sustainable for the long term. But there are very exciting new developments, such as ocular gene therapy. Luxterna has been a massive success for retinitis pigmentosa patients, another and also other ocular therapies are currently under investigation, but not only for inherited retinal dystrophies, but also for more prevalent conditions, such as wet AMD. There are now ocular gene therapies on the pipeline, and basically they have showed that they can turn that 1 injection can turn the eye into an anti-VEGF factory, bio-factory, and patients just need 1 injection, and that's it. Isn't that great? So yeah, this might change the landscape of how we treat our patients, especially if the route of administration would be subretinal, because then we might need more vitreoretinal surgeons.