macular degeneration, macular, diagnosis Lamp Stuff – My Macular Degeneration Journey/Journal

Lamp Stuff

Lampalizumab. I am not sure how to pronounce it and I have to copy the spelling so I am going to call it the ‘lamp stuff’. Be offended at my laziness if you wish. Right now I am just one big snot bubble. Be glad you can not get this stuff through cyberspace – hack, cough, sniffle!?

Lamp stuff looks like it is making it BIG. It looks as if it is the shining star (lamp, star, ha, ha….ha?) of potential treatments – that word was treatments – for geographic atrophy from dry AMD. This is the first treatment for dry AMD and people are excited.

Please note the word was not cure. Sight is not restored but the rate at which you are losing your sight is lessened. Still fantastic news.

Lamp stuff is being developed by Genentech / Roche. It is supposed to inhibit the functioning of the complementary immune system. Remember my friendly fire/gang that couldn’t shoot straight analogy? All that complementary immune system cascade stuff is dampened and the good guy retina cells are killed by their own guys less. This is again good news.

Steven Schwartz, the west coast wonder kid in retinology, reported lamp stuff is a humanized, monoclonal antibody that inhibits factor D. It is supposed to block activation of the alternative complementary system without harming the host defense response. Like I said, limits friendly fire casualties while still allowing bad guys to be fought and killed. But I have no clue what that monoclonal stuff is all about.

The lamp stuff is another injectable, right into the eyeball so you can’t be squeamish. However, it is doing so well the researchers are starting to ‘rollover’ subjects from other, less successful studies and also to offer the treatment ‘open label’ instead of blind trials. To me, that last one means they don’t believe placebo effect is a factor. Lamp stuff has a robust enough effect they just aren’t worried about other variables.

How much of an effect? Schwartz said 20% reduction in rate of deterioration in most. Those with a CFI biomarker showed a 44% reduction in deterioration.  [Click here for the article.]

The market sites I looked at were all buzzing with optimism for lamp stuff as well as for several other, potential treatments that are supposed to come to fruition in 2017. Some of the pharma companies’ stocks are hopping. If you cannot get in in time to save some vision, maybe you can make a killing in the market. Talk to your broker. There is lots of reason for hope now.

And speaking of right now, snot bubble here needs to get cleaned up. No work today (6” of snow) but I still should make an effort.

Sneezing, snotting, and sniffling my day away here. Hey, did you ever notice all of the SN words that go with your s’nose?

I will just leave you with that profound thought to ponder?.

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