Category: The Science Stuff

“Take This & You’ll Be Cured!”

Good morning! Back again.

I am sure you have noticed that this site has a real emphasis on information and research. We value the power that knowledge can give us. We also value the scientific method.

Some people may ask why that may be. It’s simple. The scientific method and controlled experiments allow us to know with a degree of certainty what is true and what works. Things are proven to within a shadow of a doubt.

Scientific method and scientific proof stand in contrast to anecdotal evidence. I would assume many of you know what anecdotal evidence is. However, for those who do not, allow me to take the podium for a second.

Wikipedia defines anecdotal evidence as evidence collected in a casual or informal manner and relying heavily or entirely on personal testimony. For example, “The world is flat.”

600 years ago everyone knew the world was flat. You look out on the horizon and everything just drops off. Terra incognita. Proceed at your own risk because you know you’re going to fall off. (Did you ever wonder what they thought you were going to fall off into? Just a random thought there.)

It took some intrepid explorers to go out and discover there was something beyond the horizon. They came back and told people just that. However, it was still anecdotal evidence. A handful of crazy sailors telling you that the world was round. It did, in fact, take a variety of explorers taking a variety of voyages (read performing experiments) to actually convince people that the world is round. These explorers proved to within a shadow of a doubt the world was round.

And you know what? I for one am glad people did not necessarily believe that handful of sailors. We should not accept everything without proof.

Very often, this reliance on anecdotal evidence happens in medicine. It happens to people looking for ways to treat their age related macular degeneration.

We hear testimonials all the time. “Take this and you will be cured!”  “It worked for my great aunt Tilly”! That someone truly believes a treatment worked for them is great. However, without scientific evidence we are not able to review it.

Nor should we. Operating on anecdotal evidence can be dangerous. Not only may you hurt yourself doing something dangerous, you could also waste valuable resources – yours and everyone else’s – on something with no value.

Why do we only talk about things that have come from clinical trials? Because the trials are controlled. That means they have tried to eliminate any confounding variables. Confounding variables are things that are outside influences that change the effects of the treatment. In other words with confounding variables we have no idea if what we tried worked. The results could come from something else entirely.

For example, you are going on a diet to lose weight. At the same time you also start walking two miles four days a week and take exercises classes three days a week. How much effect did your new diet exactly have? No way to tell, right? There are confounding variables.

Before we review anything and suggest the treatment may be promising, it needs research backing it up. We operate that way because it is the best way. We need to provide you with the best information we can. The best comes from clinical trials.

Written March 4th, 2018 Continue reading ““Take This & You’ll Be Cured!””

Optimistic for 2018

TGIF. Thank God it’s Friday! Not that the weekend is going to give me much reprieve. I have exercise classes on Saturday and a party on Sunday not to mention puppy parenthood, housework and several reports to write.

There is no rest for the wicked. Not that I have been exactly lax. This just seems to be a life with a lot to do…and I like it. I like it!

Nice to see in Newsweek and the Daily Mail that being busy and stubborn lead to longevity. Those of us with a strong work ethic, pure cussiness and a need to be in charge seem to take the years a little more easily.

There is certainly going to be a lot to do this year. In 2018 I turn 65 and need to navigate Medicare and some sort of other insurance for my cradle-robbed husband. My calculations indicate I am losing over $6,000 a year by still working at the school. My pension would pay a lot more. That and my ever failing eyesight suggest retirement from there and working full-time at the psychology practice may be the way to go. I still have some things to check out so we will see. Keep you posted.

We have a big project coming up at the office. We get to be involved in a statewide training for DBT this Spring. I have several ideas about what I want to do with that. I have discovered I really like to teach and I believe DBT is needed by our younger folks. I would love to introduce DBT in the schools.

Like I said, lots to do and I am optimistic about my opportunities. And that includes my opportunities for my vision.

Did you see Luxterna gene therapy is now on the market? Luxterna is $850,000 for a treatment! That is a hell of a lot of bake sales but I would expect many if not most communities would work to buy vision for some little guy or girl.

Remember Luxerna works by modifying the gene RPE65. RPE65 ‘recharges’ chemicals in the retinal pigment epithelial cells so they can still participate in the visual cycle. If they can reprogram RPEs to do that, how much longer before they can modify them for our diseases?

I have it on pretty good authority the APL-2 studies launch again this calendar year. That’s exciting. What is also exciting is I believe the Astellas Pharma stem cell trials will get going this year as well.

Progress is being made. Lin shared a recent article on how they are increasing the success rate for transplanted RPE stem cells.  Optimally RPE cells are to line up and form a single, functional layer of cells only one cell thick. This is everyone nose to tail, all facing in the same direction.

In order to do this the RPEs have to have well-developed primary cilia on them. Primary cilia are little, hairlike things that generally serve as the sense organs of the cell. Lab grown stem cells often don’t have the best cilia on them. When they line up, things can get a little wonky.

Kapil Bharti and the folks at the National Institute of Health have discovered a drug that helps RPE cells grow beautiful cilia. Beautiful cilia cause the RPEs to line up in pretty lines and the results of the transplant are more successful. Ta da!

So, optimistic about 2018? Oh, yeah. You just gotta believe. Every small step is progress. Once again: this is the best time in history to be going blind.

Best wishes for 2018.

Written January 5, 2018 Continue reading “Optimistic for 2018”

My New Career?

Not to belabor a point, but today did start as a rather poopy day. We had our first snow overnight. Just a couple of inches but it was the puppygirls’ first snow. My theory is this: when they went out and squatted to poop, they got cold, wet bottoms. Go inside and poop? No cold, wet bottom. Problem solved!

Of course, since my husband was first on scene and got to clean it up, he was NOT a happy camper. Not a good start to the day.

Then there was the snow itself. Getting to my eye appointment is a 90 mile trip one way. My husband does not like city driving and he does not like driving in the snow. Once more he was not a happy camper.

It is hard to explain to some people why we have been dutifully driving 90 miles one way, every six months just to be told my eyes are worse. “Please pay your copay.” For those kind of results, I could go five miles down the road!

However, it is all part of a master plan. I have real problems with defeat. Real problem being told there is no answer. If you cannot supply me with an answer, I will find someone who can!

So here I am, running to see Regillo every six months for the past two years….and I think I am getting closer!

First the good news/bad news. Or, in this case, bad news/good news. Although I find it hard to believe, I have fallen down below 20/400 acuity. Bizarre because I don’t feel blind and don’t think I function as a blind woman.. After all, I got the “you don’t look blind!” routine just last month.

However, the good news on that is my vision is now so bad, I can satisfy the truly awful vision requirement for the Astellas’ study that is supposed to launch in March! Regillo referred me again. Is this time four or time five? I have sincerely lost count. [Lin/Linda: I put the details to that study in Sue’s page The Waiting Game.]

He has also put me on the list for APL-2 which is supposed to go into phase 3 clinicals sometime in 2018. He started to offer me “something else” when we were talking about lamp stuff (which is apparently very dead in the water) and I surprised him by knowing exactly where he was going. Working on being memorable. I want my name at the top of the list. [Lin/Linda: Sue wrote about APL-2 in her page My Friend in Manila?]

Also thinking I may be getting closer because I got a new test today. They ran me on the autofluorescence test. This test uses a very bright light. When the image is examined, the areas of the macula that are already dead are black and the areas that are in distress shine. My eye probably lit up like a Christmas tree. If that gets me into a study and gets this stuff stopped? Good.

So, that is where we are. I got a new test. I chose to be hopeful it means they want more information for my new career as a lab rat! Regillo generally seemed positive. Maybe I will be going to Philadelphia.

Written Dec. 14th, 2017 Continue reading “My New Career?”

Three Types of Wet AMD

Well, the kitchen floor is now mopped. Took a deep breath and went back into the housekeeping fray after that last page. How do people get motivated for that sort of thing every day?

With a nod to our ‘wet’ readers, I am going to tackle an article on how to image different types of neovascularization. Not sure I am going to get very far because I never even ‘knew’ there were different types of choroidal neovascularization.

First off, to the article talking about imaging retinal angiomatous proliferation. Huh? Back to EyeWiki.

Choroidal neovascularization starts in the choroid. It erodes through the RPEs and results in chorioretinal anastomosis. Anastomosis? Lovely. Anastomosis is the connection of two vessels that were not previously connected. Sort of like a shunt. Got it? Good; moving on.

Retinal angiomatous proliferation is a process that happens ‘backwards’. It starts in the retina and progresses into the subretinal areas. It eventually connects the retina and choroid by forming an anastomosis. That is a connection where there is not supposed to be one. See previous paragraph.

Retinal angiogenesis proliferation has been called type 3 neovascularization. This begs the question: what are types 1 and 2? Type 3 is rare with 10% to 20% of people with wet AMD having this type of disease. This may be a good thing because the article lists all sorts of complications that are common in type 3 but rare in the other two types.

So now I have to do a little more digging and find neovascularization types 1 and 2. Back to EyeWiki where I discovered this: In type 1 the new veins are below the RPE layer. In type 2 the neovascularization passes through the RPE layer and compromises the neurosensory retina. That means it gets far enough to directly mess with the photoreceptors. Type 1 is hidden and type 2 is classic.

As far as treatment is concerned, ResearchGate.net (7/15) suggests type 1 can be treatment resistant. My guess – please note this is a guess – would be this is because type 1 is ‘buried’ in lower regions of the eye and anti-VEGF may have a harder time getting to it. That buried nature of type 1 – and another article – makes me think what we are talking about here is the occult type. Saw that classification before. Just needed to make the connection. Dawn does occasionally breaks over Marblehead.

Anyway, anti-VEGF treatments are still first choice although I am starting to see references to photodynamic therapy (“cold laser”) and even surgery. Maybe we should look into that, too.

Type 2 is the classic type. My reading suggests ‘shots’ are the treatment of choice there.

And as far as type 3 is concerned, it appears that in spite of the complications reported, type 3 can be treated rather successfully. Anti-VEGF injections do the trick, sometimes even on the first try.

So there you are the three types of wet AMD. Learn something new everyday.

written October 24th, 2017 Continue reading “Three Types of Wet AMD”

Progress Daily

I really cannot win with this transportation business. Now they are on a string of late pick-ups and I am waltzing in 45 minutes after everyone else. Grrrrrrrrrr!

Oh well, can’t fix it. Time to start a page…..and as soon as I am into it, they will show up. Same concept as going to the bathroom in the restaurant to ‘make’ your meal arrive faster.  Aha! Recognition! You have done that, too!

PRELUDE, the study, is NCT02659098. I checked and this is the same study I put my name in for last year. I just shot off a message to my research contact and asked her to make sure my ‘registration’ is still good. I am nothing if I am not persistent. Sad to say it is one of my better traits (oh no!)

There are actually two, main measurable outcomes they are interested in. There are the efficacy of the delivery system and best corrected acuity after administration of the stem cells. In the clinicaltrials.gov post they refer to the stem cells as CNTO 2476. In other literature they named the stem cells Palucorcel.  I guess it is better than George (with apologies to the royal family. I have never liked the name George, although the little guy is a cutie!) Of course, Palucorcel does not exactly fall trippingly off the tongue.

Anyway, according to a one page write-up by Jessica Lynch, previous attempts to circumvent the vitreous and go in subretinally caused too many problems. They are, as I had been led to believe previously, trying to go around to the macula using the suprachoroidal space as their passage. (Anyone ever see Fantastic Voyage? I keep thinking how incredible it would be to jump in my microscopic submarine and motor through the suprachoroidal space!) After preclinical trials with mini pigs were successful, they launched into prime time with a phase 1 trial with people. As I said, they are now recruiting for phase 2. [Sue wrote about subretinal and suprachoroidal are in the previous page: Secret Passages in the Eyeball

Looking at the additional data on clinical trials.gov I discovered there are secondary outcomes for the study. They will be looking at quality of life and reading speed as well as whether the stem cell transplants slow or even stop the growth of the geographic atrophy. They are also looking at how many people convert to wet AMD. It sounds as if this study would be a long term commitment for the ‘lab rats’ chosen.

Going back to the Medscape article about phase 1, I discovered they had pretty good success threading through the space and the transplanted cells grew and started to function.

Cell placement was important. They used the microperimetry to figure out what retinal areas the subjects were using for eccentric viewing. Too close and that could be messed up. Cell placement other places was better.

Results? The subjects had some improvement in vision. That was SOME. Before you get too excited, remember this is RPE replacement. RPEs do not see. They support your photoreceptors. Some of the photoreceptors that are at death’s door may come back but the dead ones stay dead.

I did run off the journal write-up on phase 1 and I promise to tackle it and see if there were any other cool findings. Later. Right now I have laundry to sort. Maybe listen to an NCIS episode. It is now playing all the way through on my tablet!  What can I say? It really is the little things.

Progress daily, guys. Progress daily. We will get there.

written October 17th, 2017 Continue reading “Progress Daily”

Our Turn is Coming

Happy Monday! Waiting for the van again so forgive me if I run off abruptly.

Back to the pink of health. I revised my evaluation and decided it was food poisoning….again?!?! My dining companion ate her leftovers and also got sick as the proverbial dog.

I was well enough yesterday to accept an invitation to go kayaking. Said if before, say it again, weird weather. There was some guy jet skiing on October 16th! Anyway, it was fantastic to be on the river. Warm breeze. Birds calling. Fishermen shouting greetings across the water. Kids on the bank asking me if it were nice out there. Yeah. It was. Really nice.

To business! I promised you RPE65. The Genetic Home Reference tells us RPE65 is also called retinoid isomerhydrolase. Yeah, whatever. RPE65. RPE65 is responsible for providing instructions for a protein we need to see. It is, obviously, part of the RPE layer.

As I said last time, RPE65 is essential in the visual cycle. Light changes a special molecule called 11-cis into a different substance. Since it is no longer any good for changing light into electricity in its new form, it has to be ‘recharged’ so it can go back to work. That is the job of RPE65.

With me so far?

Failure to convert the end product of the reaction – referred to as all-trans-retinal – leads to a build-up of said all-trans retinal as a waste product and a toxin. In my terminology, it is part of the eye poop. Your visual cycle also stops working. Not good.

Now, I am not saying we AMD folks have problems with faulty RPE65 genes. (Although we might. I am only a dabbler in the field.) Those mutations are found in diseases like Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA) and retinitis pigmentosa (RP). What I am saying is every breakthrough in one aspect of vision research might lead to breakthroughs in other areas and – drum roll please! – there has been a breakthrough!

Not all that far away from me, in the City of Brotherly Love, also known to us country folk as ‘Filthydelphia’, Philadelphia to all you other folks, they have found a way to ‘reprogram’ faulty RPE65 genes using gene therapy. Philadelphia is on a roll because this is the second gene therapy its researchers have had recommended for approval. That is the second of two, mind you, EVER recommended for approval by the FDA. Philly researchers have gotten them both. One more and they will have a hat trick! (Go, Flyers!….OK, so their decades were the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, but it could happen again.)

The first gene therapy recommended for approval was for leukemia. The visual cycle gene therapy is called Luxerna. It is going to be offered to children with early onset blindness in a bid to keep their photoreceptors functional. It has a very high success rate and is still working in phase 1 subjects from four years ago! [click here for an article that talks about this in more detail.]

So what happens now? Luxerna has been cleared to take the final hurdles. According to FDA.gov there are three more steps in a 12 step process. These steps are as follows: review of labeling information, inspection of manufacturing sites, APPROVAL.

Brave New World. Stay tuned. Our turn is coming.

written October 16th, 2017 Continue reading “Our Turn is Coming”

Secret Passages in the Eyeball

Back again. Chatty sort, ain’t I? ? I really thought I was done for awhile but I keep finding things; ya know? If (should I even use the word ‘if’?) you are tired of hearing me chatter, please write a page! We are anxious for more offerings. [Lin/Linda: if you haven’t read the pages by our guest authors, click here to see what we are talking about.]

Back to the topic at hand (I am not only chatty, but I go off on tangents, a lot of tangents??☝ ) the most recent thing to land in my inbox is a Medscape article Lin sent me. We are back to the stem cell research!

This article uses a lot of the concepts and vocabulary we have introduced over the months. I will review as we go along – I don’t remember it all myself! – and Lin might help us out with some links to previous pages. Pretty please and thank you.  [I think the best place to learn about stem cells is a short YouTube video.   Also, check out Sue’s early page Research.]

I am signed up for a Janssen Pharmaceutical study with stem cells. Guess who did this study? Do you ever feel LEFT OUT? Once again, I would love to know how to get on the A list for these things. Not sure all the places the study happened, though. One place was Kentucky. Maybe I was a ‘geographic undesirable’? I will have to do a little research after hip hop. (Some things do take precedence!?)

OK. Here we go. I looked up PRELUDE, etc and got routed to Clinical trials.gov. It is only going into phase 2 but the good news is they are recruiting. The better news is they are recruiting at Mid Atlantic Retina, Regillo’s place. Now I am getting stoked. “Watson!…The game is afoot!”

Shoot off an email later and get ready to accost Regillo when I see him in December. One other person who is only starting to realize the depths of my tenacity! (Cue Vincent Price laughter!)

OK. Enough nonsense….for now?. From the looks of things, PRELUDE was a study checking, for at least one thing, the feasibility of a delivery system. If you recall, we talked about ways of delivering stem cells to the back of the eye where they belong before. No just shooting them into the vitreous fluid where they roll around like loose cannon balls and end up who knows where. No, no, no! They must be placed. The way they are placed is to thread them through the subretinal space.

Now I am thinking the suprachoroidal space and the subretinal space are the same thing but I really don’t know. [The title of the article I linked to above is “Subretinal Delivery of Cells via the Suprachoroidal Space: Janssen Trial”.] How many ‘secret passages’ can an eyeball have? Be that as it may, the whole idea is to snake through this space (or spaces?) and get to the back of the eyeball without violating the integrity of the vitreous and opening it to infection.

The progress of the implanted cells in this study was checked with microperimetry. This appears to be an up and coming imagining technique we also talked about. It is a technique that tests which parts of the retina are working and how well they are actually working.

Which brings me to my word limit and bedtime. I have been to hip hop and back and need to take a bath and get ready for bed.

I did find what I think is the original journal article for this as well as the clinicaltrials.gov listing. I will follow up….tomorrow.

written October 16th, 2017 Continue reading “Secret Passages in the Eyeball”

Eye Poop Reduction

Looking for information on therapies that slow the vision cycle. Got all sorts of things on slowing traffic for safer cycling.

While I am all for fewer car/bicycle accidents, that is not exactly what I had in mind!

Back to Wikipedia, I discovered the visual cycle is the process through which light is transformed into electrical signals. If you have a penchant for chemistry, I refer you to the Wikipedia article. Social scientist here! As far as I am concerned…then there is magic!

Part of this magic includes having three different types of cone cells that respond to three, different wavelengths of light. By taking stock of the strength and blending of the stimuli from these three, types of cone cells, we are able to see color! Cool! Although my guess would have been the primary colors, the colors they detect are actually red, blue and green. Why? Dunno. Magic.

But back on track, visual cycle…

Since the job of RPEs is not only to feed the photoreceptors but also to clean up after them, RPEs have to be able to tolerate a lot of…uh, poop. (Gee, maybe I am just a big RPE! I feel like I deal with that stuff all the time!) When there is too much poop for them to handle, we get, among other problems, drusen.

Janet Sparrow in Therapy for Macular Degeneration: Insight from Acne (catchy title?) said “it is the responsibility of the RPE to internalize the membranous debris discharged daily by the photoreceptor cell.” In other words, they eat eye poop. Unfortunately, some of the molecules in the poop are toxic (as if eating eye poop was not bad enough) and not at all good for the RPEs or surrounding cells.

The theory goes something like this: Less eye poop would make life easier for the RPEs. While we cannot get rid of all the eye poop – after all it is a byproduct of what we want: sight – maybe we can reduce the volume of how much poop we actually have to deal with. If we slow down the chemical processes involved in sight maybe we can produce less poop and thus see for a longer period of time.

They are checking out that theory right now. Foundation Fighting Blindness (FFB) advertised for subjects for a phase 2 (proof of concept) clinical trial of ACU-4429, a “visual cycle modulator”. For our purposes, read “eye poop reduction strategy”.

FFB also published a one page blurb about Fenretinide. Fenretinide has successfully completed phase 2 clinical trials and is on the way to phase 3. They are hopeful it will slow down the visual cycle in those with dry AMD. The slowing should lead to fewer lesions in dry AMD and fewer cases of wet AMD.

Oh, and that chemistry I referred to earlier? I might actually have to understand some of it. Oy. In the visual cycle there is a pigment-y sort of thing called 11-cis. Helping the light signal along its way to become sight causes a chemical change in the 11-cis. In order to get changed back to its original form so it can do its job again and not contribute to the eye poop problem, 11-cis needs help from several molecules, one of which is REP65. REP65. Remember that name. It may be an up-and comer.

written October 14th, 2017 Continue reading “Eye Poop Reduction”

Important Cells

You would think that after saying I was running out of ideas, I would have the good grace to actually run out of ideas and shut up. You should be so lucky!? [Lin/Linda: =I= should be so lucky! ::grin::]

A comment was made suggesting we may have fostered some misinformation. We have stressed the idea of retinal pigment epithelial (RPEs) cells supporting the photoreceptors in the macula so much we may have given some people the impression the RPEs are only under the macula. This is not true. RPEs are under all of the photoreceptors and support all vision, not just central vision.

Once again my very erudite source, Wikipedia (I did print out another article but it is long and involved and I can probably get three or four pages out of it. Do you really want that?) reports the RPE layer was first discovered back in the late 1700s, early 1800s. It was noted to be black in color in many animals but brown in humans. This is because this single layer of hexagonal shaped cells is chock full of – all together now! – pigment. The RPE layer wraps around the back of the eye and ends practically at the iris.

We have talked about a couple of the functions of the RPEs. They are there to feed and clean up after the prima donna photoreceptors – both central cones and more peripheral rods – that apparently cannot do things for themselves.

Something I had not heard of before but makes sense is RPEs, as the conduit from the bloodstream to the interior of the eye, are also the gatekeepers. RPEs are at least partially responsible for the immune privilege of the eye. Remember we talked about how the eye is such a great place to do stem cell experiments because the immune response is so weak? Part of that weakness is due to the great jobs the RPEs usually do. They block bad things entering our eyes from the rest of our system.

RPEs gather up scattered light to make images sharper. That also keeps the light from causing extra oxidative stress.

Simply put the visual cycle is the amount of time as well as all the steps it takes for pigment in the photoreceptors to be depleted and then build back up again. The RPEs do much to control this.

Lastly, the RPEs produce signalling molecules that ‘talk’ to different parts of the system. Lots of very important functions for a one-cell thick layer of cells.

Age-related macular degeneration is not the only condition that causes vision loss due to malfunctions involving the RPEs. A more common one you may heard of is retinitis pigmentosa (RP). Their losses start in the periphery and progress inwards. Those with RP go blind. That’s BLIND. Maybe we ARE the lucky ones.

Do I know why our deterioration generally stops at the macula? Nope, but I have it on good authority it usually does. Usually does not mean 100% guarantee. Just usually. It is the best that I can do.

written October 10th, 2017

Continue reading “Important Cells”

Keep Calm and Carry On

I want to get this typed and out because Lin and I both suspect people will not listen to me or Paul McCartney and let the suggestion of atrophic damage beyond the macula be.

How can you not listen to Paul? He was my favorite Beatle when I was a teenager! Remember when the Beatles were on Ed Sullivan? [Lin/Linda: of course I do – I was sitting on the floor in front of the TV loving every second of it.]

What? Pertinence to the topic? Okay. Sigh.

Found an article based on research coming out of Seoul, South Korea. The research looked at peripheral reticular pigmentary degeneration (PRPD). That is lesions on other areas of the retina as opposed to lesions only on the macula.

Primero point: the authors say three or four times this type of degeneration is rare, rare, rare. They had trouble finding enough people to make their study valid.

Point segundo: patients with degeneration of the peripheral retina are significantly older than patients who do not have it. Yes, some of you are up there but most of us don’t have to worry about the truly advanced age factor for some time.

Point three, whatever that is in Spanish [tercero]: the most common, probably contributing factors in these people were factors related to compromised circulation. That was both systemic and ocular circulation. The biggies were found to be retinal artery occlusion, ischemic (low blood flow) optic neuropathy, and a couple of other ischemias. [Click here for more about these conditions that are sometimes called ‘eye strokes’.]

One that sort of scared me was a positive correlation with high blood pressure. However, last week my pressure was 122/78! Admire it now because I cannot tell you the last time it was so beautiful.

Other factors are as follows: stroke, carotid artery stenosis, and yes, AMD.

Now don’t get your panties in a bunch just yet. The theory is, once again, there are common, underlying factors leading to these conditions. AMD does NOT cause PRPE although the same may not be said in reverse. PDPR may promote the development of AMD.

They are looking at a shared genetic risk between AMD and PDPR. There is evidence a complement factor H variant is involved in coding for a propensity for PDPR just as it is thought to code for some (all?) variants of AMD.

Choroidal ischemia is a factor in AMD as well as PDPR.

So, bottom line here: this is a very rare occurrence, especially in younger oldsters. It is related to poor circulation. Circulation tends to get worse as we get older. It is also possibly related to variants in complement factor H.

Can’t change your genes just yet at any rate. Cannot get any younger. That leaves taking care of your circulatory system. Do what you can to improve it.

As an anonymous member of the British Ministry of Information said: “Keep calm and carry on.”

Our journey is not over yet.

written October 8th, 2017 Continue reading “Keep Calm and Carry On”

Testing…1…2…3

Back again after vacuuming the living room and filling both the washer and the dishwasher. Starting to wonder which is worse. I have always been a little crazy but tackling some of this research stuff is, well, nuts!

“How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice.

“You must be” said the Cat “ or you wouldn’t have come here.”

Now that THAT is settled….the article, Clinical Endpoints, etc. talks about how using spectral domain OCT can even predict where GA will spread in your macula. With no way to stop it, I might want to be ignorant of where the condition will hit next, but the authors opine being able to discover new biomarkers may indicate new directions for therapies, something we want to hear.

The article then moved over to the wet side of the street. I only had testing for wet AMD one time. They shot me up with ‘carrot juice’ aka beta carotene, and then used what was probably either fluorescein angiography or indocyanine green angiography to look for leaks.

Back to a more general discussion, did anyone ever put electrodes on your corneas and shine a light in your eyes? Multifocal electroretinography measures the strength of the signal coming off your photoreceptors when exposed to light. And I am just full of bad news today, but there appears to be a diminution of the signal strength even in early AMD.

We have talked at some length about dark adaptation and contrast sensitivity. We even mentioned the contrast test they talk about, Pelli-Robson. Allow me a moment of satisfaction for that one?.

On to one I never heard of: microperimetry. This test put stimuli on very specific parts of your macula and you hit the old button if your see them. Your fixation point is monitored so if you “cheat your sweet patootie off” like I do – in other words use eccentric viewing instead of putting my poor, ravished fovea on the target – they will know.

Other than suggesting where on your retina you can actually put your eccentric viewing, the ‘maps’ from microperimetry also give an idea of where the atrophy is going to spread. Not that I want to know perhaps. And even more bad news is the study quoted found even functional macular tissue was compromised.

I think I need to stop reading this cursed study. It is depressing!

Okay, the last section of the article talked about quality of life. Finally, back to my neck of the woods. Remember: social scientist here.

And some last thoughts:

It is just fine to put problems you cannot solve away until you actually have the resources to deal with them. In DBT (and no, I have not forgotten about that) it is called pushing away. I share good news and bad. It is up to you to pick out the things that are helpful and put away the information that is not helpful or depressing. Even the depressing findings add to our knowledge base and lead us towards treatments and maybe even a cure. Let the researchers deal with the depressing stuff.

“I don’t focus on what I’m up against. I focus on my goals and ignore the rest.” – Venus Williams

October 8th, 2017 Continue reading “Testing…1…2…3”

Down the Rabbit Hole

Hey, back to the article Lin sent, Clinical Endpoints, etc. I now have another question: what scale is my retinologist using to classify me as ‘advanced’? Turns out there are two rating systems in use. One is the Wisconsin Age-Related Maculopathy Grading System and the other is the Beckman Initiative for Macular Research scale. If you are rated on the first one you would be advanced if you had foveal involvement. In the second one any type of GA, foveal involvement or no, you are considered advanced.

I have foveal involvement at least in my left eye so for me, it is actually a moot point. If you have been told you have advanced AMD, you might want to find out which scale is being used. It would appear – and again this is me surmising, not someone who knows something – a pronouncement based on the Beckman scale might not be as bad. You might still have a functional fovea.

Moving right along, lunch!? Be back in about 20!

We are still getting vine-ripened tomatoes out of the garden. In October! Weird…but yummy. Remember to stop and smell the roses, or in this case, taste the tomatoes, on your Journey. Neither one requires decent eye sight!

Back to work. We have talked about optical coherence tomography (OCT) before. I did not know it was not invented until 1996 and not improved to be of any ‘real’ benefit until 2003. One more reason this is not your parent’s AMD. At least the doctors and technicians can see what they are looking at much better now!

I think I said this before, too, but OCT screening can give views in 2 and 3 dimensions. You get depth as well as width and height measures of your lesions, or in my terms, divots. In GA OCT (and an ABC…XYZ to you, too!) you can see sharply delineated regions of degradation in both RPEs and photoreceptors and your choroid poses – gasp! – naked for the camera.

The article also mentions choriocapillaris and thinning and apposition of the overlying nuclear layer. Hold a moment for the translation for the rest of that. What did I EVER do without my iPad?

The capillary lamina is also called choriocapillaris. It is a layer of itsy bitsy blood vessels immediately adjacent to Bruch’s membrane. My assumption is it is below the retina but above Bruch’s membrane The drawings in Wikipedia are too small for me. [Lin/Linda: I can’t find a much bigger picture but this one shows that it is below Bruch’s membrane.]

Apposition means next to. The inner nuclear layer is, again according to Wikipedia, my highly professional source, a layer of the retina made up of closely packed cells of the three following types: bipolar cells (I wonder if they have mood swings? Ouch. Bad psychology joke), horizontal cells and amacrine cells.

Amacrine cells? No clue. That will just have me falling down another layer in the rabbit hole. I am quitting before I meet the Queen of Hearts. Off with their heads!

I will try to get through at least part of the rest of this article later. Maybe impossible but, hey…..

“Sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

Lewis Carroll, 1865

Written October 8th, 2017 Continue reading “Down the Rabbit Hole”

Let It Be

Onward into massive confusion! I may not have the brains to understand this stuff but I make up for it in pure, dogged tenacity.

I looked up peripheral retina atrophy and discovered Eyewiki considers atrophic retinal holes to be full-thickness, retinal breaks generally occurring in the peripheral retina. They are not caused by vitreous adhesions like macular holes. Remember macular holes are caused when the ‘strings’ in the vitreous latch on and tug. The cause for the death of these parts of the peripheral retina is thought to be a failure of blood supply and not drusen or any of the complement factor SNAFUS we may experience in AMD.

So that is one thing I found suggesting peripheral retina atrophy and AMD are not related. HOWEVER, I also found an article suggesting they are and AMD might not be just for maculas any more. Just to make everything more delightful, Ophthalmology in April, 2017 published a study about peripheral retinal changes associated with AMD. (One of the authors for this study was Chew, EY! Beastie Baby would have approved!) Their conclusions were these: peripheral eye changes are more prevalent in eyes with AMD. These changes can be mid-range and/or far periphery of the retina. They decided AMD may be a full eye condition and suggested further study.

Another study done in Croatia and published online in Ophthalmology Retina September 22, 2017 found peripheral drusen, reticular pigment changes and paving stone degeneration occurred more often in those with AMD than in controls. Paving stone degeneration is constituted by small, discrete, rounded areas of loss of pigment and thinning of the retina.

In my limited research nothing said that AMD leads to full retina deterioration. My local retinologist did not say that was the case either.

I am not a doctor and I am groping for answers just like you. Don’t believe a word I say. That said, to clean up the saying a bit, opinions are like tushies. Everyone has one.

This is mine on this topic: Peripheral atrophy and geographic atrophy are probably not the same ‘animal’. There may be some, common underlying mechanism but we don’t know what it is yet. When I was talking to my local doctor he mentioned what might have been the presence of peripheral retinal atrophy in some of the same people who had AMD. Just because they are both present does not mean causality one for the other. He also said he had seen it only rarely and in the very old. Having seen even one case, he was not going to make me any promises things would not go from bad to worse.

Now to my soapbox. I have more than enough to worry about with my macular degeneration and I expect you do too. I am not going to buy trouble. I could waste every minute of every day worrying about a bunch of what-ifs. I have better things to do with my time. I suspect you do, too.

Let it be….
Paul McCartney, 1970

written October 7th, 2017

Continue reading “Let It Be”

Slogging Through Again

I am waiting for my ride to go hot air ballooning and working on deciphering an article Lin sent me. Once again the question is how much loss can we expect from dry AMD, especially geographic atrophy? Regillo told me 60 degrees of arc loss would be extreme but my local retinologist said some people in their 90s can have GA encompassing the entire retina. Ouch.  [Lin/Linda: Sue wrote about ‘degrees of arc’ in her page Love Wikipedia.]

So, here be me again, slogging through another article I about half understand. Want to slog along? I would appreciate the company!

The article is entitled Clinical Endpoints for the Study of Geographic Atrophy Secondary to Age-Related Macular Degeneration published October, 2016. You there in the home audience feel free to download it and play along!

First of all, I latched on the statement (paraphrasing) “drusen may not result in actual visual acuity loss but the effects of having drusen can be seen in functional deficits very early in the disease process”. What functional deficits?

A 2008 paper by Feng Qiu and Susan Leat found people with very early AMD have loss of “low spatial frequency static contrast sensitivity”. Yippee. Once more down the rabbit hole. It appears – according to the appendix of Emergent Techniques for Assessment of Visual Performance – spatial contrast sensitivity has to do with lighting, the place on the retina where the image is falling and something called field size as well as time factors and the orientation of the image.

Boiled down it has something to do with how sensitive we are to variations in the data our eyes are gathering. I think. Don’t hold me to it. Just know that 20/20 vision with drusen might not be as perfect as we might think.

We talked about reduced dark adaptation before and this is also a problem in early AMD. Apparently there are several effects early drusen have that have nothing to do with acuity.

The next thing I had to look up – in the same paragraph, mind you! – was information that might help me understand a statement suggesting advancement to GA from early AMD may in part depend upon the presence of “reticular pseudodrusen”. So now we have drusen impersonators????

According to Association of Pseudodrusen and Early Onset Drusen by De Bats, Wolff et al (doesn’t that team sound perfect for the Halloween season?) pseudodrusen form on top of the RPEs and not below them as do ‘real’ drusen. There seems to be a connection between having ‘eye poop’ aka drusen on top of the RPEs and early and rapid develop of advanced AMD.

And the above was all in one paragraph! I may be a very long time in deciphering this baby.

So what I have discovered so far is this: visual acuity does not tell the whole story about functional vision loss when it comes to early AMD. If you have drusen be aware your contrast sensitivity and dark adaptation are probably already compromised. Secondly, pseudodrusen, which is eye poop on top of the RPEs, can predict a more rapid and earlier progression to GA.

Have I found a thing about GA outside of the macula? Not yet, but I am still reading! Talk at ya later!

written October 7th, 2o17 Continue reading “Slogging Through Again”

Another Potential Treatment

The more I look into this, the more overwhelming it seems! I am glad I never tried to be a geneticist!

What am I talking about? The latest information on treatment for geographic atrophy suggests there is another gene being targeted. The gene is C3.

Remember how I have been saying Age-Related Macular Degeneration is looking not like one disease but like a family of diseases? When I followed up with some background research on complement factor C3, I found a list of – get this – over 3 dozen different SNPs that preliminary evidence suggests have a role in causing AMD. Remember SNPs or ‘snips’ are genetic coding errors. Some are beneficial. Some are neutral and some can really screw thing up.

Anyway, it appears there are literally dozens – if not more – of ways we can be ‘wrong’ to get AMD. Right now that means they are working on finding dozens of ways to intervene. May be a panacea sometime in the future, but right now they are nibbling at the problem a piece at a time.

And the piece they are nibbling on now is C3. According to a short article by FierceBiotech, Apellis has finished phase 2 – the proof of concept phase – trials with intravitreal injections of a drug they are calling APL-2. Later it will get a trendy brand name but for now look for APL-2.

BusinessWire identifies Apellis as a company “developing a platform of novel therapeutic compounds for the treatment of autoimmune diseases” so I guess people are coming around to see AMD as an autoimmune disease. APL-2 is described as a complement factor C inhibitor. It “binds specifically to C3 and C3b, effectively blocking all three pathways of complement activation (classic, lectin and alternative).” That sort of sounds like it is suppressing ‘friendly fire’ sooner in the process and may be closer to the ‘one treatment fits all’ that we would like to see. Not anywhere near there, but closer.

The results were very promising. At 12 months they showed a 29% reduction in growth as compared to sham.

But the weird – and great! – thing that happened was this: during the second six months of the study, the reduction rate was 47%! For some reason, the effects of the treatment appeared to be cumulative. Pretty cool.

Now I am not sure what type of genotype you have to have to profit from treatment with APL-2. The researchers are not sure at this point either. They decided to do some searching for genetic markers. Being the suspicious sort, I am wondering if they had star responders and non-responders just like they did with lampalizumab. Would make sense. Why do genetic testing on an ‘n’ of 246 people if you don’t have to? It’s expensive.

And speaking about money, there is a lot of money to be made with this drug. Apellis wants to get APL-2 to market quickly so it can compete with eculizumab, a treatment for PNH, a blood disease. (Apparently PNH is also related to complement factor C). Their competition, Soliris, was predicted to bring in more than $3 billion in 2017. Sometimes a little greed is a good thing! $3 billion can really motivated people.

So, there you go. It seems they have found one more way to save some of the sight of some of the people some of the time. Number two potential treatment for our ‘untreatable’ disease. The wall is coming down a brick at a time. There is hope.

Here’s another article about APL-2 that says “APL-2, a complement C3 inhibitor, has met its primary endpoint in its phase 2 clinical trial, reducing the rate of geographic atrophy (GA) associated with age-related macular degeneration (AMD).”

written August 27th, 2017 Continue reading “Another Potential Treatment”

MacTel

Finished the hands and knees – or actually hands and butt; my shorts have a wet seat to prove it! – scrubbing of my kitchen floor. One chore down!

Of course while I was down there I realized the next thing I should do is wipe down all the lower cupboard and closet doors. Things look a lot cleaner when you can’t see them.

I kept thinking “For this, I did 6 ½ years of college?”. Still had to be done. I am thinking that now, instead of doing a task when it looks like it needs it, maybe I should get a schedule. Won’t happen, but already lax housekeeping and low vision may prove to be a very nasty combination.

So now back to something a little more, shall we say, intellectual. Checked online and found some newer information being published by the Macular Degeneration Association. The one article says that AMD and telangiectasia might be caused by faulty energy metabolism in the mitochondria.

This phrase appears to be becoming popular on the lecture circuit: let us unpack that; shall we? ? Gee, did I sound professorial?

According to Kierstan Boyd, writing for the American Academy of Ophthalmology, macular telangiectasia, MacTel to it’s friends, is a macular disease causing central vision loss. In type 2, blood vessels under the macula swell and/or leak. Fluid causes the macula to swell and thicken (edema). Scar tissue forms. Type 1 is type 2 in one eye only.

Sounds similar to AMD without the RPE deaths and that divot that lets people see our choroids.

Mitochondria? Wikipedia gives us a lot of info we don’t need. The info we want is mitochondria combine oxygen and nutrients and produce ATP. ATP is a source of chemical energy for your cells. In short, your cells work and you live because of mitochondria.

Discovered from the article that retinas have more mitochondria and use more energy than any other cell in the body.

I had known eyes are energy hogs, but I did not realize they were the worst, gas-guzzlers of the body!

The findings of the study suggest there may be something wrong with the lipid (fat) sensors associated with this energy production. The sensors think they have lots of lipids stockpiled for energy production. They send out a message saying not to deliver any glucose (sugar) to burn. “Stockpiles are full. Stop all deliveries!”. The problem is, the sensors are wrong and more supplies really are needed. Energy-starved, the photoreceptor start screaming to be fed. This leads to new, inferior vessel formation and leaks leaving us with either wet AMD or MacTel.

So here we are with one more, ‘new’ eye disorder and another theory on what is going on in our poor, misbehaving eyeballs. Never heard of MacTel before, but if you have MacTel and you are reading this, welcome! It sounds as if the end results put us all in the same boat. Once again, we are on this journey together. Continue reading “MacTel”

Cataracts and AMD

Hunting around for a good topic and AMD and cataracts popped up in the search. Daddy had both and I would suspect some of you have both, too. Is there a relationship between AMD and cataracts? If so, what is it?

Turns out those are excellent questions. The experts are falling on different sides of the fence as to whether or not there may be a relationship between them.

Back in the earlier years of this century (2002) the good folks in Wisconsin, the Beaver Dam Eye Study people, again looked at their subjects after ten years had passed. Statistically, there was an indication that cataracts alone are associated with early AMD. There was also a statistical correlation between cataract surgery and late AMD.

Once again, we are looking at correlation. Correlation does not assume causality. Want a giggle over crazy correlations? Go to the website Spurious Correlations for some fun graphs. You will quickly see how just because things correlate they may not cause one another.

Anyway, like I said, they are still casting around to try to get some definitive answers on this question. The Chesapeake Watermen Study found a correlation between having cataracts and AMD but the Framingham Eye Study and some early Blue Mountain work did not.

But what about a correlation between cataract surgery and late AMD? Beaver Dam found cataract surgery before baseline (initially study measures) was associated with increased risk of late AMD. In fact, eyes that had cataract surgery were four times as likely to develop geographic atrophy and three times as likely to develop wet AMD! Holy freakin’ moley! How do you like that for being between a rock and a hard place?

Of course, like, I said, there is no certainty in any of this yet. In AREDS Report 25, Chew et al reported no correlation between cataract surgery and ARM. Hard to know who to believe.

So, what to do? No one is saying to go blind with cataract now rather than wait and go blind with AMD later. Do what you have to do to see.

FYI Blue Mountain, fortunately or unfortunately, flipped over to the significant correlation camp in reviewing results of a 2006 study. While that may not be great news for those with cataracts, Blue Mountain also shared yet another point they agree on with Beaver Dam. They discovered nonphakic eyes had a three times greater risk of developing late stage AMD as opposed to phakic eyes.

I know. I know. Don’t get your panties in a bunch.  Here is the explanation: in phakic cataract surgery, there is a small incision made in the front of the eye and the artificial lens is implanted. The natural lens is not removed. In nonphakic cataract surgery, the lens is removed.

Talk to your doctor, but as it stands now, given the choice, the phakic procedure sounds like a better choice to me. Might decrease your chances of advanced AMD.

Written August 7th, 2017

Continue reading “Cataracts and AMD”

The Proper Magic Potion

Hi, home from physical therapy. My physical therapist and I looked all through the offerings of a world-famous corporation – gee, what could that be? – and picked out a new cart for me. See how this one works.

I came home from Penn State with my rotator cuff tendinitis flaring again. I had hauled my rolling crate around with some of the travel being uphill. Apparently not a plan. Not only do we become pack mules for all of the vision related stuff we get to haul around, we also get to have pack mule injuries!

How do other people handle the problems of – well, freight? Does anyone walk to the grocery? How do you haul everything? Any great ideas on carts?

I looked online for ergonomic carts and dollies and what they are showing is similar to what I just ordered. I will let you know if the new one is any better than the several I have purchased over the last year and a half.

FYI if you know someone who is mechanical and want to make some money, ask him (or her!) to design a rolling crate that can take punishment and not fall apart in three months! Not only would I buy one but I know several teachers and therapists who would also buy one.

That is the practical part of this page. Now for the not so practical but sort of cool part. Anybody ever read H.G. Wells The Island of Dr. Moreau? In that late 1800s science fiction novel Dr. Moreau creates human-animal hybrids using vivisection. Nasty business.

Today scientists are much more efficient than what Wells imagined. Today if scientists want a fish-mouse hybrid, they do it at a genetic level.

Madness, you say! (Cue demonic, mad-scientist laughter). Whoever would want them to produce a fish-mouse hybrid? Well, maybe you would.

Zebrafish are cool. They can regenerate parts. Put zebrafish genes in mice and they can regrow parts, too.

The parts the scientists are growing in mice are glial cells. The scientists have prompted the glial cells to become functional interneurons in mouse retinas.

Interneurons are connecting cells between other nerve cells. Remember I told you they are able to grow photoreceptors in eyes but cannot get them to connect? Interneurons are connectors. They receive and process signals from the rods and cones. With the proper magic potion for the job, scientists got adult mice to grow interneurons in damaged eyes. And the best part of all? They conducted signals!

This research was just published in July, 2017. It’s very early days and they have to work out many bugs, check for safety, etc. but it is the first step. Maybe some day they will inject photoreceptors into your eyes, inject zebrafish genes and magic potion, all over your lunch hour. By the end of the week you will have grown those new photoreceptors AND hooked them up to your optic nerve. Wow. Science fiction becomes science fact.

If you want to read the short version of the research findings, I found them in the ScienceDaily post. The date was July 26, 2017.

written August 1st, 2017

Continue reading “The Proper Magic Potion”

Thank a Mouse

This page is just me being inquisitive. If you are not up for me trying to figure out biochemistry, you might want to skip this page.

Looking at the medications they are using for wet AMD and the new treatment for dry AMD, lampalizumab, I noticed something.  Most of the generic names end in -zumab. What the hey? What is that????

To begin with, I discovered there are two suffixes, -ximab and -zumab.  Wikipedia actually has a whole list of medical suffixes but I am concerned about two right now. Those are the ones related to drugs for AMD. Suffice it to know that every suffix means something.  -olol for example will always mean a beta blocker. Of the two I am interested in: – ximab always stands for a chimeric agent that responds to more than one antigen;  and -zumab always stands for a humanized antibody.

See what I mean about just skipping this page?

Chimeric.  Now I knew what a chimera is. A chimera is a single organism composed of cells that should have made up multiple organisms. The organism  is made of genetically different cells. According to MedicineNet human chimeras were discovered when it was noted some people have two different blood types. The generally accepted ways a human chimera is formed are for nonidentical twins to share blood in utero or for one to absorb the other.

Once again according to Wikipedia, chimera proteins are produced through the joining of two or more genes that originally coded for two different proteins. The properties of the new derive from each of its ‘parents’. Naturally occurring chimera are often found in cancer cells; thus, it would appear, the wisdom of using manufactured chimera proteins to battle cancer (a genetic version of fighting fire with fire). Chimeric cancer cells happen because of random genetic mutation. Chimeric proteins in drugs happen by design. Read genetic engineering.

Forging ahead here, every drug ending in -zumab is a ‘humanized protein’. And, no, that does not mean it is kinder and gentler. It means that the base protein used in the drug probably came from a mouse. Generations of lab mice have had the very stuff of their being manipulated in the search for ways to improve our health. Think kinder thoughts about the little devils.

Because – actually two becauses – there are a lot of similarities between mouse DNA and human DNA, we can use mouse as the frame for our designer drugs. Because some of their proteins are foreign to us and would cause an allergic reaction, the proteins have to be ‘humanized’. Potentially offending sequences are cut out and replaced by sequences found in humans.

The idea is to produce proteins that will get into a sequence of reactions and somehow change it. In dry AMD lampalizumab weakens the immune reaction. Wet AMD drugs intercept the SOS message being sent by the eye. That is the one saying the eye needs more ‘supplies’ and new ‘supply routes’ (blood vessels) should be built.

So that is the answer to that burning question (you really were dying to know; I know). If you are taking a drug ending in -ximab or -zumab,  you are the beneficiary of altered protein sequences. Be grateful. Thank a mouse.

written July 1st, 2017

Continue reading “Thank a Mouse”

Reading Modern Retina

Never thought I would be skimming back issues of Modern Retina, but here I am! Let us get back to some of the science stuff.

Amyloid beta is a major component of plague found in the brains of those with Alzheimer’s. There has been some suspicion AMD and Alzheimer’s are related at a genetic level. A recent study completed by Cheryl Guttman Krader failed to show any positive effects of injecting an antibody that targets amyloid beta into the eyes of those of us with geographic atrophy.

For the time being this means this line of inquiry will be abandoned or re-worked. Proof of concept did not occur and these researchers might go on to investigate something else.

Why are negative findings good news? One less blind alley to investigate! Since we don’t know which ideas may bear fruit, they all have to be investigated. Eventually we get to only the ones that have the most promise. Scientific method.

And another reason I think this finding is good news? It sort of suggests the Alzheimer’s and AMD connection may not be so cut and dry. Phew!

Here is another failure in proof of concept. Aflibercept is called Eylea when it is used as an inhibitor of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF – read “one of the things that makes the extra veins grow in AMD”). Michelle Dalton tried implanting stem cells in the eyes of patients who had been getting Aflibercept. She hoped the stem cell would produce the natural vascular endothelial growth factor and make the shots unneeded.

Unfortunately, many more patients than she had hoped required rescue doses of the drug. However, she also had people who kept the stem cells alive and these imported new stem cells did produce some of the Anti-VEGF molecule. Quantities were just too far below a therapeutic dose.

While this may be a failed experiment on the face of things, it is not all bad. Knowing there was some production of the desired molecules means this procedure may be very helpful once they figure out why it worked the little bit it did. Magnifying that effect may lead to fewer injections.

Last one, David S. Boyer wrote a review on multiple strategies being investigated for treating dry AMD. While many protective strategies for our photoreceptors and RPEs have failed, one they are still looking at with interest is brimonidine, brand name Allergen. Allergen is once again an intravitreally administered drug. (That is needle in the eye. We appear to be destined to join our wet AMD friends in that fate!) Coming out of phase 1 trials, brimonidine looks good. Next for it is phase 2, proof of concept. Will it perform as hoped?

Glatiramer acetate is looking good for reducing drusen. Glatiramer is used to treat multiple sclerosis, a disease in which the immune system wears away at the covering on the nerves. The theory is that glatiramer acts as a decoy to mitigate the autoimmune reaction. This treatment is based on the idea AMD really is an autoimmune disease.

There has been some evidence glatiramer reduces drusen, but Dr. Boyer warned us drusen can become fewer on their own. Drusen regression.

And that is a topic for another page.

written June 26th, 2017

Continue reading “Reading Modern Retina”

Not Created Equal

We heard from a reader who has vitelliform macular dystrophy. I had never heard of it. Therefore you can image my surprise when I picked up an article I had downloaded last week and – guess what! – the article talked about vitelliform dystrophy! Sometimes the synchronicity in the Universe is scary.

Anyway, it appears the Universe has declared we are to learn about vitelliform dystrophy. Here we go!

I have discovered all macular diseases are not created equal. There are dozens of them and researchers are discovering more on a regular basis.

Vitelliform dystrophy may look like age-related macular degeneration and act like macular degeneration but it is not macular degeneration. (Don’t worry. We are not throwing you out of the group!)

Vitelliform dystrophy is a pattern dystrophy. They are so called because the damage tends to ‘draw’ things on the retina. For example, one manifestation of the disease looks like a butterfly (photo to the right is a fundus photograph of butterfly pattern).

Vitelliform 2 is called Best disease. This is not because it is the best disease to have nor is it because Dr. Best hijacked the disease and named it for himself. It is because the disease comes as a result of a mutation on the BEST1 gene. (Apparently that means we all have BEST genes and there are at least two of them. How about that.)

Best disease is a pattern dystrophy because – all together now! – it makes a PATTERN on your retina. The pattern is a sunny-side-up egg. The yolk is centered on the fovea.

One of the nice things about Best disease is you may never know you have it.  According to the Hereditary Ocular Disease site 7 to 9 percent of those with Best disease are asymptomatic. Others may experience vision loss but recover most of their function. A much smaller percentage may proceed to neovascularization and serious loss. Of course, the older we get the better chance we have of having some really serious problems. And by the way, children can have this one.

That is because, once again, it is genetic. Best disease is an autosomal dominant condition. That means it is on a body-forming chromosome – not the chromosome that has the x or the y and makes you a boy or a girl.  It is also dominant and can express itself whether or not its partner gene wants it to. You only need one of these babies to be in trouble.

Of course there are all sorts of things that may or will affect whether or not this gene does actually express. However, this is not a place to discuss epigenetics. Nor am I the one to explain THAT baby! Suffice it to say, you should warn everyone you are related to by blood that it has expressed in the family and they need to have regular eye exams.

Like AMD there is absolutely no treatment and no cure. (I get so tired of typing that). If you have Best disease and progress to CNV you may profit from shots.

And that, my dears, is that. Continue reading “Not Created Equal”

Yesterday’s News

Good morning! Lin just shared a video clip from something that looked like a local TV, health program. The clip was on geographic atrophy. That is GA to those in the know.

I have no problem with information being shared with the public. In fact, I think it is a good thing. The more exposure we get and the more noise we make I am hoping two things will happen. One would be law makers (read the deep pockets of government) will be more aware and sympathetic to our plight. (They might also come to realize it is going to cost BIG bucks to care for us!) The other will be people who have AMD will become more knowledgeable and go for help and support.

There are some drawbacks to these little TV presentations, though. For one, they are a bit behind the curve when it comes to breaking new news. The show talked about a fantastic, recent development that would help people with GA.

Fantastic? OK. Helpful? Yep. Recent? Only if you consider research published in 2013 to be recent.   So shoot me. I am an information snob. That information was just too yesterday’s news for me.

I also think they present half information. If you listen to the clip you will hear the expert talk about a ‘subset’ of patients who cannot be helped with current treatments. Not to put too fine a point on this – and look out because I can feel myself getting ready to rant! – but, honey, the group that can be helped with current treatments is the subset! 15% of AMD patients ‘go wet’. The 85% of us who are left are not the subset! (Told you I was going to rant!)

In the clip there is the implication that replacing RPEs will restore sight. We have talked about this a dozen times before. In GA the photoreceptors are dead. There is no sight without photoreceptors. The RPEs are support cells for the photoreceptors. They do not do any of the ‘seeing’.

But my big complaint about this clip? The expert says your world ‘ends’ when you develop GA!!! (Now I am really revving up. Head for the storm cellar!)

With every significant loss, there is a time of dismay and distress. That does not mean the end of your world! Everyone of us here is made of tougher stuff than you could ever have believed. Maybe you have never been tested before, but the steel is there.

Today I taught my class. I attended a staff meeting and saw two clients. Then I came home, walked the dog and made a meal. I am now writing this page. After that I have a psych report to write. Then maybe some down time ‘reading’ a BARD book.

Tomorrow I work, walk with a friend and go to my yoga class. I am making plans to go into New York City with a co-worker next month. The list goes on.

In short, if my world ended a year and a half ago, nobody bothered to tell me about it! I am still going pretty much full tilt!

So, bottom line? I guess it would be listen to the stuff in the media but remember it might not be accurate or current. Once again, caveat emptor. Best sources still remain published research. If you cannot read it or cannot understand it, ask Lin or me to look at it and we can tell you we don’t understand it either!

And about that end of the world business? Don’t believe everything you hear! GA is not a walk in the park. However, if you want to, you can still do that and dozens of other things as well.

Continue reading “Yesterday’s News”

Sisters Are Doin’ It For Themselves

I have paid a lot of attention to the male movers and shakers in vision research. Perhaps it is time to note the contributes of the women. Recently I have come upon short articles about the research of two.

Sally Temple, SUNY-Albany, and her colleagues recently published a paper on how nicotinamide can suppress the progression of AMD. Nicotinamide is a vitamin B3 derivative.

Dr. Temple took pluripotent cells, that is stem cells, from people who had AMD and those who did not. She manipulated the stem cells to become retinal pigmentation epithelial cells and grew them in her lab.

One of the first things Temple and her team noted was the cells from the AMD people acted differently from the RPEs grown from healthy subjects’ cells. The cells from people with AMD produced different chemicals. The chemicals were the same ones that figure in the production of drusen and contribute to inflammation.

These were RPEs growing on a culture medium in a glass dish. There was nothing else to contribute to the formation of the chemicals. The chemicals had to be coming from the RPEs. And, with no other possible influences, the cause for the production of these chemicals pretty much had to be genetic.

The fault, dear readers, is not in ourselves but in our genes. One more tally in the genes are destiny column.

But the good news is, when they squirted (or whatever) nicotinamide on the offending RPEs, things improved. Chemicals that are responsible for the bad things were less and the RPEs survived longer.

Perhaps if we find a way to get nicotinamide directly into eyes, we will get the same results in vivo as in vitro. Worth a try.

Masayo Takahashi is a Japanese researcher. Takahashi has been experimenting using pluripotent cells taken from the same people they are going back into. No embryonic cells required.

There is excitement about this new procedure not only because of ethical issues. There are indications this procedure will be cheaper and faster to implement. In additional, they are thinking people can ‘bank’ their stem cells. These can be used either for ‘repairs’ in the original cell ‘owner’ or they can be given to other people who are immune matched. (Sort of like blood type matching. Don’t want the body getting up in arms over the ‘invading’ materials.)

Bottom line is the ladies are out there rocking it just like the men. They continue to come up with great new findings and each one takes us a little bit closer to effective treatments and maybe – just maybe – even a cure.

To copy Lin’s use of old song titles, “sisters are doing’ it for themselves”. And they are doing it for us, too! Continue reading “Sisters Are Doin’ It For Themselves”

Hodge Podge

This may end up as another chatty, hodge podge affair. There is really nothing major happening and in the world of progressive eye disease nothing major happening is a good thing!

So, actually, I guess that is my first offering here. Those of you who have recently received your diagnosis or have had a crisis and are really distressed – it is not all drama and disease focus for the rest of your life.

You adjust and other things take center stage. That is not only normal but it is a good thing.

Second offering is something I picked up last month at the support group. When I said dry AMD is the base disease, they looked at me as if I had three heads. What I meant – and what they had not gleaned. Why won’t people do their research! Or minimally ask questions? – is that even though the shots have stopped the neovascularization, the growth of new blood vessel that lead to a bleed, you still have the underlying cause of the problem. The cause is regular, old, dry AMD.

This is why, even though you think the stuff we publish on dry AMD does not relate to you, it does.

Wet AMD is one type of end stage AMD and geographic atrophy is the other. Stopping the bleeding does not eliminate the underlying disease. It just eliminates the symptom.

Which brought me to another thought. I have never seen anything that says if an eye prevented from going wet will go to geographic atrophy. Hmmmmm…..

Nuts! More to worry about. Kaszubski et al in Geographic Atrophy and Choroidal Neovascularization in the Same Eye: A Review stated there are people who can have both forms at the same time. Geographic Atrophy generally happens first. (That part is bad news for me although I am under the impression that for me there is very little left to ‘save’ by building new blood vessels.)

To follow the question posed above, though, they also say there is some evidence anti-VEGF shots can increase the chances of GA development.

While that is bad news for you getting the shots it does NOT mean to stop your shots. No shot and you will bleed. Bleeds lead to scarring and certain vision loss now. GA is slow and lead to vision loss later. Given a choice, battle the bleeds and worry about the atrophy later.

End of lecture.

Other than that, in real time Memorial Day approaches and I am thinking summer. Although I know there is ‘no rushing city hall’ (to paraphrase another old chestnut), I started looking up Astellas and Robert Lanza again. Just to see what the dear boy is up to. I have been hoping to get to Philly and the clinical trials this summer. It would be perfect timing for me but I am not sure about the Astellas Institute of Regenerative Medicine (AIRM). They will need to give Wills the go ahead to start one of ‘my’ clinical trials before anything happens for me.

Astellas is gearing up for something, though. Something big. A couple of years back they bought OCATA for $379 million. Now they are on a hiring binge and are looking for a bigger location in or near Marlborough, Mass.

In the business articles I read Lanza purposely hyped the work they are doing on AMD. I am assuming that is still their big thrust. (That is even though AIRM is in a variety of areas of regenerative medicine and Lanza himself is intellectually all over the place, including developing a theory of the Universe!)

Anyway, seeing this big a build-up with lots of business chatter tells me something is going to happen. Just hope it is in the trial I have volunteered for. My eyes and I are not getting any younger! Continue reading “Hodge Podge”

AMD & Autoimmune Disease – A Connection?

Hello, folks! Here we go again with a topic that is so far over my head I never should have even attempted it. Oh well, one of our readers asked the question. And besides, “a man’s reach should exceed his grasp or what is a heaven for?” (Robert Browning – and one of my favorite quotes?)

So you have again been forewarned. I am slogging through medical research and I have no clue what 90% of what I am reading means. If you get confused, just consider who is doing the interpretation!

The question was: can AMD be considered an autoimmune disease?

The answer is probably, maybe. They are working on that now. Can I get back to you? Like next year, maybe?

I am sure we all remember the alternative pathway of the complementary immune system. ? From what I remember things this system deals with include inflammation and the release of macrophages (big eaters) to clean up the mess. Macrophages are sort of the carrion eaters of your body.

According to webMD inflammation is supposed to protect us from foreign substances. It occurs in response to chemicals and involves an increase of blood flow to the affected area. Fluid leaking into tissues can cause redness and swelling. Swelling can cause damage.

Autoimmune conditions occur when there is no foreign invader and the body starts to identify its own tissues as something foreign. Healthy tissues come under attack.

AMD is an inflammatory disease. It would make sense that with chronic inflammation, the signaling system could easily go awry and result in ‘friendly fire’ casualties. By my way of thinking, this might be even more likely because both inflammation and macrophages are part of the innate immune system. The defenses of the innate immune system deal with nonspecific targets.

Morohoski et al. wrote a paper on autoimmunity in retinal degeneration. He (she? It is K. Morohoski) states “a growing body of evidence indicates that AMD pathogenesis too involves ocular inflammation and autoimmunity.”

But it is not just inflammation and the complementary immune system they are now suspecting. Now they are even suspecting involvement of the adaptive immune system. That is the one in which defenses are ‘made to order’ as opposite to ‘one size fits all’. Think antibodies and developing resistance to a disease; that immune system.

Anyway, now they are thinking damage may cause a breakdown of the blood/ brain barrier – remember the eye is the only part of the brain you can see with the naked eye! – and antibodies may be released into the eye. Some of these are retinal autoantibodies. These are proteins that will attack the retina of the host.

So, in answer to the question: it seems reasonable AMD is an autoimmune disorder. It seems probably that not only is the non-specific, innate immunity system in the mix but the specific, adaptive immune system is involved as well. Is it written in stone? Nope? Are they ready to uncategorically declare AMD an autoimmune disorder? Not yet, but I would predict it is coming. Continue reading “AMD & Autoimmune Disease – A Connection?”

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