Don?t Fire Until You See the Whites of Their Eyes The Epoch Times, NY - The wet type, the most serious, strikes 10 percent of those with this disease. In this case abnormal blood vessels grow under the macula. ...
Take care of your eyes and they'll look after you Reno Gazette Journal, NV - Nov 28, 2008 While the wet form is responsible for only 10 to 15 percent of all cases, it's much more apt to severely damage the macula and cause a rapid loss of central ...
Drugs you can't have Stuff.co.nz, New Zealand - Nov 30, 2008 Ranibizumab (marketed as Lucentis) is an effective treatment for wet macular degeneration, an age-related eye disease that can leave sufferers blind. ...
Speeding Up Eye Treatment eMaxHealth.com, NC - Nov 16, 2008 It follows a review of current arrangements by Local Health Boards for delivering treatment for wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD). ...
Learn about the World Ophthalmic Pharmaceutical Drugs Market MarketWatch - Nov 25, 2008 II-56 Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD) II-56 Types of AMD II-56 Dry AMD (Non-Neovascular) II-56 Wet AMD (Neovascular) II-56 Causes II-57 Treatment ...
Unable to see, unwilling to quit CharlotteObserver.com, NC - Nov 27, 2008 He was wet and cold by the time he made it to the foot of Katahdin on Oct. 7. He camped there, then made his ascent the next day Katahdin rises 5200 feet. ...
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Recent News and Articles on the Keywords: macular + web + eyes Related to the article below (Last Update: 8/7/2008)
UM device can predict diabetes through eyes Detroit Free Press, United States - Jul 15, 2008 It also may help diagnose changes that occur in the eye as early as 10 years before a person is diagnosed with macular degeneration, the leading cause of ...
Supplements Help Young Eyes North American Press Syndicate, NY - Jul 31, 2008 Zeaxanthin and lutein, antioxidants found in the macula of the eye, have long been associated with maintaining healthy eyesight and preventing afflictions ...
Your eyes need sun protection, too Chicago Daily Herald, IL - Jul 20, 2008 1 preventable factor in the development of macular degeneration, says Alberto Martinez, a practicing ophthalmologist in Bethesda, Md., and a clinical ...
Software Tool Helps Visually Impaired See Web Pages InformationWeek, NY - Jul 14, 2008 The project is funded by a grant from the National Eye Institute. "This technology enables all the text on a Web site to be presented in the same readable ...
Eye test may spot diabetes trouble Asbury Park Press, NJ - Jul 22, 2008 But the technique is also capable of screening other diseases such as glaucoma or age-related macular degeneration," he added. ...
Novak?s back to rural roots River Falls Journal (subscription), WI - Jul 10, 2008 He said the last few years have yielded big advances in the treatment of macular degeneration. Traditionally, eye doctors treat the condition with the goal ...
Vitrectomy for the treatment of full-thickness stage 3 or 4 macular holes. Results of a … - WR Freeman, SP Azen, JW Kim, W el-Haig, DR Mishell … - Archives of Ophthalmology, 1997 - Am Med Assoc ...Web browser does not support basic Web standards ... The Vitrectomy for Treatment of Macular Hole Study Group. ... and benefits of vitrectomy surgery for eyes with stage ...
The second eye of patients with senile macular degeneration - ER Strahlman, SL Fine, A Hillis - Archives of Ophthalmology, 1983 - Am Med Assoc ... browser does not support basic Web standards ... Patients with senile macular degeneration
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Staining of Internal Limiting Membrane in Macular Hole Surgery - K Kadonosono, N Itoh, E Uchio, S Nakamura, S Ohno - Archives of Ophthalmology, 2000 - Am Med Assoc ... your Web browser does not support basic Web standards ... useful surgical approach to
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Idiopathic senile macular hole. Its early stages and pathogenesis - JD Gass - Archives of Ophthalmology, 1988 - Am Med Assoc ... your Web browser does not support basic Web standards. ... Evidence is presented that
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Age-related macular degeneration and blindness due to neovascular maculopathy - FL Ferris, SL Fine, L Hyman - Archives of Ophthalmology, 1984 - Am Med Assoc ... your Web browser does not support basic Web standards ... Age-related macular degeneration
(AMD) is one of the ... Seventy-nine percent of eyes legally blind due to AMD ...
The long-term effects of visible light on the eye - HR Taylor, S West, B Munoz, FS Rosenthal, SB … - Archives of Ophthalmology, 1992 - Am Med Assoc ...Web browser does not support basic Web standards. ... long-term effects of visible light
on the eye. ... and senile cataract, age-related macular degeneration, pterygium ...
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Chlamydia pneumoniae present in eyes with wet age-related macular degeneration
Researchers at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary ( MEEI ) have found that Chlamydia pneumoniae, a bacterium linked to heart disease and capable of causing chronic inflammation, was present in the diseased eye tissue of five out of nine people with neovascular, or "wet," age-related macular degeneration ( AMD ).
However, it was not found in the eyes of more than 20 individuals without age-related macular degeneration, providing more evidence that this disease may be caused by inflammation.
The study is published in the Archive for Clinical and Experimental Ophthalmology.
Age-related macular degeneration is the leading cause of blindness in Americans over the age of 55. The majority of vision loss is due to neovascular age-related macular degeneration, the advanced form of the disease characterized by the formation of blood vessels in the macula, the center part of the eye's retina. These blood vessels often leak, thus giving neovascular age-related macular degeneration the name of "wet" AMD.
Researchers at the MEEI and Harvard Medical School ( HMS ) examined nine wet age-related macular degeneration membranes for the presence of C. pneumoniae and also determined whether this pathogen can change the function of eye cells in ways that can cause wet age-related macular degeneration.
They found C. pneumoniae in the eyes of five out of the nine patients with wet age-related macular degeneration. They also tested tissue from more than 20 people who did not have age-related macular degeneration and did not find C. pneumoniae in any of these normal eye tissues.
" The paper showed that C. pneumoniae is capable of modifying the function of important cell types involved in regulating normal eye function," said lead author Murat Kalayoglu. " We found that C. pneumoniae infection led to increased production of vascular endothelial growth factor ( VEGF ), the key protein involved in wet age-related macular degeneration.
That C. pneumoniae infection of human eye cell types increases VEGF production is therefore significant and could explain in part why VEGF levels are increased in many people with wet age-related macular degeneration."
Most of the new medications to treat wet age-related macular degeneration, such as Macugen and Lucentis block VEGF.
The study comes at a time of great interest in inflammatory mediators of age-related macular degeneration.
Over the past seven months, a flurry of high-impact papers have shown, in aggregate, that nearly 50 percent of age-related macular degeneration can be explained by variations in a gene called Complement Factor H ( CFH ).
This gene makes a protein that regulates the immune and inflammatory responses of the body.
" Our hypothesis is that C. pneumoniae may be the key link between CFH and age-related macular degeneration," Kalayoglu said. " That is, patients with CFH variations may be particularly susceptible to the damaging effects of chronic infection, and an infectious organism like C. pneumoniae may be particularly effective in accelerating inflammation and driving progression of age-related macular degeneration in these patients."
Kalayoglu and colleagues are currently collaborating with CFH researchers to study this hypothesis. " It may be possible to stop or reverse progression of age-related macular degeneration by identifying susceptible patients by diagnostic testing, and then treating these susceptible patients. Although C. pneumoniae is a bacterium that might respond to some antibiotics, much more work needs to be done before considering antibiotic therapy for age-related macular degeneration," he said.
" This is an important study suggesting that infection with C. pneumoniae may be a critical link between a genetic predisposition to age-related macular degeneration and actual progression to disease," said Gerald I. Byrne, University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center. " This is yet another example of how an infection may unexpectedly contribute to a chronic disease. Certainly the association of C. pneumoniae with heart disease sets the stage for this pathogen's involvement in other chronic conditions. This work is, in some ways, reminiscent of studies done more than 15 years ago on infections and ulcers. Those studies were viewed with skepticism, but Marshal and Warren, the researchers who pioneered that work received the Nobel Prize this year."
