Reversing Wet Macular Degeneration

Ivanhoe Newswire
Thursday, October 5, 2006; 12:00 AM

By Vivian Richardson, Ivanhoe Health Correspondent

ORLANDO, Fla. (Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Patients with the wet form of macular degeneration now have a new treatment option that could actually reverse their vision loss.

Two new studies reveal ranibizumab, or Lucentis, can shrink the invasive blood vessels that cause vision loss.

"It's really the biggest advance in the treatment of wet macular degeneration in the history of the disease," David Brown, M.D., told Ivanhoe. Dr. Brown is the lead author of one of the new studies testing the effectiveness of Lucentis. He is an ophthalmologist at Vitroretinal Consultants, Methodist Hospital in Houston.

Age-related macular degeneration is the top cause of blindness for people older than 50. Neovascular, or wet, macular degeneration is caused by the growth of blood vessels in the back of the eye. Eventually, the bleeding and swelling will lead to scar formation and blindness.

The destructive blood vessel growth is stimulated by vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGF-A). Dr. Brown explains that the blood vessels are like weeds growing through the back wall of the eye. "That's caused by VEGF-A. What this drug does is it blocks VEGF-A and makes the weeds shrink up and stop leaking," he said.

Lucentis is a vast improvement over the current drug treatment for wet macular degenration, verteporfin (Visudyne), according to Dr. Brown. "We directly compared Lucentis to the previous treatment. The previous treatment, at the end of the year, 60 percent of patients were legally blind in that eye and in the Lucentis arm, only one out of eight was legally blind." That's just 12.5 percent.

"I've got patients who started this study legally blind -- could not drive -- who gained the ability to read and drive and work again. It's been amazing," said Dr. Brown. "Certainly every patient doesn't experience rags to riches improvement, but if you catch it early, this truly offers patients the promise that they can maintain their independence."

The FDA approved Lucentis in June of this year. In the study, patients were given an injection of the drug into their eye once a month. Side effects include detached retina and infection. Dr. Brown says one of the next steps is to figure out if the drug will be effective with less frequent injections.

This article was reported by Ivanhoe.com, who offers Medical Alerts by e-mail every day of the week. To subscribe, go to: http://www.ivanhoe.com/newsalert/.

SOURCE: Ivanhoe interview with David M. Brown, M.D., from Vitroretinal Consultants, Methodist Hospital in Houston, and The New England Journal of Medicine, 2006;355: 1419-1431:1432-1444