Macular Degeneration and its New Treatments
The results of two large, randomized clinical trials published October 5, 2006, in the New England Journal of Medicine demonstrate that the drug ranibizumab (Lucentis) is an effective treatment for neovascular macular degeneration, a complication of age-related macular degeneration that leads to the vast majority of legal blindness associated with the disorder.
it is a disease of the retina that affects more than 9 million Americans and is a leading cause of blindness in people over 55.
In the "dry" form, which 90 percent of patients have, there is a loss of the light-sensing cells in the retina and the cells that nourish them. Vision is often disturbed but not destroyed altogether. There is no treatment for this form of the disease, said Pat D'Amore , a senior scientist at the Schepens Eye Research Institute in Boston.
"Wet" macular degeneration is rarer but far more devastating. Abnormal blood vessels grow into the macula, the central part of the retina, where they bleed, leak, and cause swelling, often leading to irreversible blindness.
Three relatively new drugs — Lucentis, Macugen, and Avastin — all attack VEGF, the growth factor that stimulates blood vessel growth. All must be injected directly into the eye. Lucentis "actually improves vision in 30 to 40 percent of patients," said Dr. Emily Chew of the National Eye Institute in Bethesda, Md.
Lucentis costs $1,950 per dose, but a very similar drug, Avastin — which is approved for treating colon cancer and can be used "off-label" to treat macular degeneration — costs only $17 to $50 per dose. A head-to-head comparison of the two drugs, both made by Genentech, has just been approved. Macugen was approved for the wet disease two years ago but appears to be less effective.
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Filed under Eye Treatment, Macular Degeneration
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