He conducts research in the field of ophthalmology, investigating the safety and efficacy of therapies for cystoid macular edema in retinitis pigmentosa. He is currently writing his first manuscript and is expected to finish it soon. Omar Abu Elyounes was honored with the Excellent Student Award by the Centre for Translational Medicine.
Dr. Abu Elyounes graduated from Semmelweis University last year and was already interested in research while he was still a medical student. He believes that research should not remain purely theoretical, but it should help generate clearer evidence and lead to better decisions in clinical practice. He is increasingly interested in questions that begin with patients and return to patients in a meaningful way. “I wanted to work on research that stays close to real clinical problems. My interest in inherited retinal diseases was strongly inspired by my supervisor, Dr. Ditta Zobor. Her passion, dedication, and deep commitment to patients with inherited retinal diseases made a strong impression on me from the beginning. Through working with her, I started to understand how complex these diseases are, but also how much hope there is in this field because of new therapeutic developments. That combination of scientific complexity, clinical need, and patient impact is what drew me into this topic.”
Dr. Abu Elyounes’ first project examines the safety and efficacy of potential therapies for cystoid macular edema in retinitis pigmentosa. His manuscript is expected to be ready for submission toward the end of 2026 or in early 2027. “Based on our data, we believe that carbonic anhydrase inhibitors and corticosteroids may reduce macular edema anatomically, although improvement in visual acuity appears less consistent. From a clinical perspective, our results may support a cautious and structured treatment strategy, with topical carbonic anhydrase inhibitors as a reasonable first-line option and more invasive therapies reserved for selected or resistant cases.”
The second project of Dr. Abu Elyounes was developed from the first one. “During our research, we noticed that the literature does not fully answer many real-life clinical questions, such as when to start treatment, when to monitor the patient, when to switch therapies, and when to stop treatment. Therefore, my second project will be an international survey investigating real-world clinical decision-making in the management of cystoid macular edema associated with retinitis pigmentosa. The survey is currently in the questionnaire development phase, and it aims to help understand how retina specialists and experts in inherited retinal diseases approach these difficult clinical decisions in practice.”
In the future, Dr. Abu Elyounes plans to become an ophthalmologist. What attracted him to this field is that it brings together detailed clinical examination, advanced imaging, microsurgery, and rapidly evolving treatment methods. He also finds it motivating that, in ophthalmology, even a small improvement in vision can significantly enhance patients’ independence and quality of life.
(Emese Szabó)