Professor Parwez Hossain

I am a Associate Professor in ophthalmology at the University of Southampton and Consultant Ophthalmologist at Eye Unit, University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. I am an Associate Editor for ‘Eye’, the scientific journal for the Royal College Ophthalmologists and an NHS Bronze Clinical Excellence Award holder.

My main interest is in treating all types of cornea and external disease, these conditions include a range of conditions such as cataracts, blepharitis, dry eye disease, fuchs endothelial dystrophy, keratoconus, herpetic eye disease, meibomian gland dysfunction and pterygium. Treatment may include tailored medical therapy (novel eye drops, specific non-drug therapy) or involve surgery in the form of corneal transplantation (eg endothelial keratoplasty/pterygium surgery) - with over 1,000 procedures performed - or other forms of anterior segment/ocular surface eye surgery (eg collagen cross-linking for keratoconus).

I also perform routine and complex cataract surgery, often in patients with a high risk profile (I have performed over 3,000 procedures). I have extensive experience on use of intraocular lenses to obtain the optimal refractive outcomes for my cataract surgery eg would a Toric Intraocular Lens be more suitable over a standard lens? Is it better to use multifocal/extended depth of lens? Each of my patients has a detailed refractive, occupational and, where necessary, corneal topographic assessment so that this can be evaluated. Post-cataract surgery, my patients are predominantly made spectacle independent but each patient has different requirements and the surgical plan is tailor-made for the individual.

I qualified in medicine from Aberdeen University and trained in ophthalmology in Aberdeen, Nottingham, Leicester and Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, Miami, USA. I sub-specialise in cornea and external eye disease, run a busy tertiary referral centre for the Southampton Eye Unit, Southampton University Hospital NHS Trust and take care of a diverse range of corneal diseases. Clinical expertise – Cornea, cataract and external eye disease.

My patient referral base is very large with patients coming from all over the UK, Eire and the Channel Islands for my NHS clinical practice.

In my university/academic role, I run an active research programme to determine the optimal treatments in patients with cornea and external eye disease. As a result, both my NHS and private patients benefit from up to date advice on the latest therapies available for their conditions. Research background – developing new therapies /surgery for cornea and cataract disease. My clinician-scientist career started at Aberdeen University where I was awarded a Wellcome Trust fellowship to study the mechanisms of lymphocyte traffic in ocular inflammation. In my PhD thesis, I established a novel method for in vivo tracking of immune cells in the posterior segment of the eye. The technique allowed the interactions of lymphocytes with an inflamed vascular endothelium to be observed and quantified.

Following my PhD, I was appointed Clinical Lecturer at Nottingham University, there my interest focused on investigating the innate immune mechanisms during corneal inflammation. I found that the immune adhesion molecule CD34 is a unique marker for human corneal stromal keratocyte (corneal fibroblast) activation. While at Nottingham, I also helped to establish the effectiveness of a new surgical technique called ‘Fine Needle Diathermy’ to treat long standing corneal vascularisation. This treatment helps against chronic corneal vascularisation such as from herpes keratitis or chronic corneal graft rejection and has been adopted around the world. I also developed techniques in corneal confocal imaging and my work has highlighted the benefit of this in the early detection of diabetic peripheral neuropathy (published in The Lancet).

At the University of Southampton I lead a corneal infection research group comprising a post-doctoral fellow, PhD and undergraduate research students. My research focus is to develop new diagnostic techniques for corneal infections such as anterior segment OCT and novel microbial diagnostic detection platforms. I also run a clinical surgical research programme with the aim to develop optimal methods for keratoplasty, including laser based approaches. As part of the UK Collagen Cross-linking Consortium, me and my team at Southampton have performed over 300, using an accelerated protocol collagen cross-linking procedures for keratoconus patients with favorable outcomes.