AMD Treatment Helps Other Eye Problems?
(Ivanhoe Newswire) – Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a major cause of visual impairment in the United States. As many as 11 million Americans have some form of macular degeneration. More than two million people, aged 50 and older, are living with the most advanced forms of the disease. Researchers are now looking further to see if treatments for this condition can also aid other eye problems.
Due to the aging population, an increasing number of patients are being treated for age-related macular degeneration (AMD), an eye condition in which abnormal blood vessels develop and leak into the eye. When patients develop wet AMD, they receive injections of anti-vascular endothelial growth factor medication (VEGF). VEGF prompts growth of new blood vessels in the body. In the case of AMD, however, such new growth is unwanted and may cause bleeding in the retina.
It has not been clear whether this treatment would also serve patients experiencing other symptoms, such as vitreomacular interface disease (VMID), in which there is traction or contact between the retina and the vitreous matter in the eye. Researchers retrospectively studied 178 patients, of whom 18 percent had VMID over an average of 2.5 years.
Findings showed that while eyes with some kind of macular traction required more injections, they still showed improvement (best corrected visual acuity) to similar eyes without VMID.
"This finding is significant because it showed that patients with VMID are not necessarily treatment resistant for AMD," senior author Sophie J. Bakri, M.D. was quoted saying.
She also says it may help physicians not give up on treating such patients, and understand the need for more doses of medication for those with VMID. Researchers say more study is needed, including a prospective clinical trial.
Source: The Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Ophthalmology in Chicago, November 2012
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