| Two drugs: How a Miami doctor found a cheap way to save people's sight -- and got a lesson in medicine and money | | Posted Tuesday, November 14, 2006 11:11:05 AM by Blog57 Team | | Dr. Philip Rosenfeld had the epiphany that would save the vision of thousands of people -- and may save billions of dollars in healthcare costs -- one evening last year, as he drove home over the Rickenbacker Causeway. He realized that a cancer drug could be injected directly into the eye to fight wet macular degeneration, which leaves thousands of Americans legally blind every year. 'As soon as I got home, I said to my wife, `You're not going to believe this,' '' Rosenfeld says. Rosenfeld, a retina specialist at the University of Miami's Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, may have guessed that night how effective the drug would be, and he had some sense of the possible cost savings. But he could not have foreseen that his idea would spread around the world in a matter of months, with eye doctors from Santa Barbara to Beirut launching their own studies; nor could he have predicted that a biotechnology company's reluctance to get involved would draw him into the quagmire of the rising cost of new drugs.... | |
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| | | Age-Related Macular Degeneration: Couch Potatoes More at Risk? | | Posted Tuesday, November 07, 2006 7:00:45 AM by Blog57 Team | | People hoping to stave off the creakiness and sagging that come with age may have one more incentive to get off the couch. A new study suggests that exercise may protect against the most severe form of age-related macular degeneration, a disease that progressively damages the macula, the part of the eye involved with central vision. Writing in the current British Journal of Ophthalmology, researchers from the University of Wisconsin report that regular exercise seems to work against the "wet" form of AMD, in which blood vessels grow abnormally in the eye and leak fluid, eventually causing vision loss. They monitored almost 4,000 people between the ages of 43 and 86 over a period of 15 years and discovered that those who engaged in regular physical activity at least three times a week, with or without sweating, were 70 percent less likely to develop the condition.... | |
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| | | Drug could reverse effects of macular degeneration | | Posted Tuesday, October 31, 2006 1:00:18 PM by Blog57 Team | | A recent medical breakthrough may reverse the effects of macular degeneration, a major cause of blindness in North America and Europe. But its high cost is already prompting doctors to find a cheap alternative. "It's the first treatment that actually causes vision improvement in the average patient, with 35 to 40 per cent of patients showing significant vision improvement," Dr. Philip Rosenfeld, of the University of Miami School of Medicine, told CTV News. There are about 250,000 new cases of macular degeneration in Canada and the United States each year. The disease is largely associated with aging -- patients are typically at least 65 years old -- and causes blood vessels to form in the back of the eye.... | |
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| | | New study to evaluate whether nutrient-based factors slow the progression of age-related macular degeneration | | Posted Tuesday, October 31, 2006 6:57:11 AM by Blog57 Team | | UT Southwestern Medical Center is participating in a nationwide study investigating whether modified combinations of vitamins, minerals and fish oil products can slow the progression of vision loss from age-related macular degeneration. "This study will evaluate nutrient-based factors that may influence the development and progression of the two most prevalent age-related eye diseases, age-related macular degeneration and cataracts," said Dr. Yu-Guang He, an ophthalmologist and principal investigator of the study at UT Southwestern. The Age-Related Eye Disease Study 2, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, will build upon results from an earlier study that found high-dose antioxidant vitamins and minerals taken orally reduced the risk of AMD progression by 25 percent and the risk of moderate vision loss by 19 percent.... | |
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| | | Gene behind age-related macular degeneration identified | | Posted Tuesday, October 24, 2006 6:54:47 AM by Blog57 Team | | Washington, Oct 20: Researchers have linked a gene to macular degeneration risk, claiming that the discovery may provide a key to potential treatment and prevention techniques.Researchers at the John A. Moran Eye Center at the University of Utah have identified a gene called HTRA1 that contributes to a major risk of Age Related Macular Degeneration (AMD), the most common cause of irreversible vision loss in the developed world.AMD is a degenerative disorder affecting a portion of the retina called the macula. The macula is responsible for clear, central vision. Individuals with AMD have difficulty with activities like reading, watching television, and seeing faces of people directly across the table. The disease often leads to legal blindness in patients older than 60 years of age. The discovery of this gene allows anyone to take a simple blood test to find out if they are up to 700 per cent more likely to develop AMD than the average person.... | |
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| | | UAB takes part in vision study | | Posted Tuesday, October 17, 2006 11:00:22 AM by Blog57 Team | | The UAB Department of Ophthalmology is participating in a nationwide study to determine whether a modified combination of vitamins, minerals and fish oil can further slow the progression of vision loss from age-related macular degeneration. The study, Age-Related Eye Disease Study 2, or AREDS2, will build upon results from the earlier Age-Related Eye Disease Study. Results from the original study found high-dose antioxidant vitamins and minerals - vitamins C and E, beta-carotene, zinc and copper - reduced the risk of progression to advanced age-related macular degeneration by 25 percent, and the risk of moderate vision loss by 19 percent. Cynthia Owsley, professor of ophthalmology and director of the University of Alabama at Birmingham Clinical Research Unit in the Department of Ophthalmology, said AREDS2 will refine the findings of the original study by adding plant-derivatives lutein and zeaxanthin, and the omega-3 fatty acids DHA and EPA, derived from fish and vegetable oils.... | |
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| | | New Hope for People With Macular Degeneration | | Posted Tuesday, October 10, 2006 6:55:11 PM by Blog57 Team | | A new treatment for the wet form of age-related macular degeneration--a leading cause of vision loss in people over 50--appears to be a big improvement over the current therapy. The condition occurs when blood vessels in the eye grow abnormally and leak fluid into the central retina (macula). Two studies in this week's New England Journal of Medicine found that patients given monthly injections of ranibizumab (Lucentis) in the eye to inhibit vessel growth experienced much less vision loss or more improvement than those given the usual therapy, which uses a laser to close off leaking vessels. About 95 percent of the Lucentis group retained their vision, compared with about 60 percent of those receiving the standard treatment. And about one third of the Lucentis group actually experienced improvement; only 5 percent of the other group did.... | |
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| | | Does eye protection come at a price? | | Posted Wednesday, October 04, 2006 2:54:30 AM by Blog57 Team | | You need protection from ultraviolet rays because they can harm your eyes, causing cataracts and macular degeneration. But do more expensive sunglasses mean more UV protection? Using a UV meter, optician Cathy Nguyen tests three pairs of sunglasses. The prices -- $100, $36 and $8. "All of the sunglasses had 100 percent UV protection, she said. .... | |
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| | | Stem cells: Cure for macular degeneration? | | Posted Wednesday, September 27, 2006 10:53:26 AM by Blog57 Team | | WORCESTER, Mass., Sept. 21 (UPI) -- U.S. scientists say embryonic stem cells can slow vision loss when injected into rats suffering from a disease similar to macular degeneration. The finding supports the idea of trying the technique in humans suffering from macular degeneration -- the leading cause of blindness in people older than 55, The Washington Post reported. Raymond Lund, then at the University of Utah, and Dr. Robert Lanza of Advanced Cell Technology Inc. in Worcester, Mass., started by developing a method of turning embryonic stem cells into retinal pigment epithelium cells, which nourish the eye's light-sensitive "photoreceptor" cells, the newspaper said. In macular degeneration, the pigment cells gradually disappear. The researchers said they succeeded in all 18 stem cell lines they worked with, injecting the stem cells, about 20,000 per eye, into the retinas of 14 rats with a genetic disease similar to macular degeneration.... | |
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| | | Researchers Identify Molecule Behind 'Macular Degeneration' | | Posted Friday, September 22, 2006 12:59:02 PM by Blog57 Team | | Cleveland, OH (AHN) - Researchers at Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Clinic Cole Eye Institute identified a dart-like molecule that is responsible for age related 'macular degeneration.' The molecule, Carboxyethylpyrroles (CEPs), sticks to proteins in the eye and is the main trigger for the unchecked growth of blood vessels. Unchecked blood vessel growth is one of the main causes behind the development of age-related macular degeneration. Macular degeneration is strongly linked to blindness among people over 65 in the United States. A researcher said, in a press release, that "We are now trying to find the receptors - the keyholes - in the retina cells that are activated by CEPs. We are also designing drugs that can mop up the CEPs or prevent their formation." .... | |
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