OK, so I like listening to myself talk. I decided to write another page. Lin is going to love this but I kinda miss writing sometimes.
Anyway, if I am going to write more, you might want to give me some assignments. It keeps me from rambling on. Sort of a self-defense move on your part, and I am still a half decent researcher. You might get some good information in return.
Enuf of that.
This page is going to be bad news – good news. Bad news first. According to the August 1, 2019 Healio ophthalmology post, yellow glasses do nothing to improve night driving. In a study by Hwang et al, people wearing yellow lenses ran down just as many simulated pedestrians as the folks not wearing the glasses. Pooh.
The bottom line for this study was leave your money in your pocket and do not invest in yellow-lenses driving glasses.
The commercials target older drivers because we have a lot more trouble with night vision and night driving. We are also more affected by oncoming headlights. Yellow lenses did nothing for that problem either. Spend your money another way.
Bad news number next is this: Eylea injected in the non-wet eye does not help to prevent it from going wet. Again in Healio, this time July 27 of this year, it was reported that in a two year study trying to use Eylea prophylactically, it didn’t work. In other words, the percentage of the group who converted to neovascular AMD was just about the same whether they received the Eylea injections or not. It appears that using Eylea to try to keep an eye from converting to wet has no positive effect.
And one more time about that word “converting”. Remember all AMD starts out as “dry”. Geographic atrophy and “wet” or neovascular AMD are both just different end stages of the same disease. Therefore, LumiThera products and complement inhibitors like APL-2 may conceivably help slow the progression of the disease so that people won’t ever have to worry about converting. Cool.
Now in the interest of fair and balanced reporting, let’s look at two, positive reports. First of all, Healio ophthalmology reported in their July 28, 2019 post that they are making progress with the so called “patch”. An ultra thin piece of probably polymer with stem cell derived retinal pigment epithelial cells was slid through the subretinal space and positioned within the geographic atrophy lesion.
The big news here is the delivery method. Using the subretinal space means no vitrectomy and no opening up the center of the eye to possible infection. It is a procedure that could eventually be done on an outpatient basis. Also, the study proved they were able to put the patch where it was needed with very respectable accuracy. Good going.
And another quick review: RPEs do no seeing. RPEs are the “servant cells” for the photoreceptors that do do the seeing. Replacing RPEs is a great step because it puts the support system back on the job. Somehow you have to replace the photoreceptors.
Won’t they just grow back? Nope. Skin heals. Bones heal. Neurons do not heal and photoreceptors are neurons.
Never fear, however, because our superheroes, the researchers, are on the job. Last year, September, 2018 the Review of Ophthalmology reported the first regrowth of rod cells in mammals.
Exciting, yes, but don’t throw the party quite yet. The mammals were mice and they regrew rod cells. We primarily lack cone cells. Just the same, the researchers at Mt. Sinai in NYC are expanding the frontier and getting us ever closer to real cures for blindness.
How do you like that for good news?
Written August 5th, 2019