a hope of treatment for a major cause of blindness in France

For the first time, a treatment appears to be in sight for the atrophic form of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), one of the leading causes of low vision and near-blindness in France among those over 50, reveals a clinical study presented at the last congress of the American Ophthalmological Association. “Overall, fewer treated patients lose vision after one year than those not treated”notes Nicolas Leveziel, ophthalmologist at Poitiers University Hospital and researcher at Inserm (Unit 1084).

In 2006, a therapeutic revolution made it possible to effectively treat the so-called “wet” form of AMD, which is characterized by the pathological proliferation of blood vessels under the macula, the central area of ​​the retina essential for sight. Regular injection into the eye of an antibody that blocks a vessel growth factor can slow down this proliferation and the progressive loss of vision in affected elderly people. But in…