Monday morning and I am waiting for the van to go to work. Thus endeth another weekend.
Next week at this time I will be just about starting a five day long seminar. My life just keeps pulling me along….by the hair…as I scream.
No, not really. It is all by choice. I could always say “no!” But I don’t.
Taking a minute to look at my old email, I found a really old Medscape post from 2015. And no, I am not THAT far behind. It was an article referenced by another article. Anyway, the article was about how Pegpleranib is being used as a pretreatment for wet AMD. They are experimenting with this stuff in patients who are treatment resistant. The hope is that Pegpleranib will increase the effectiveness of anti-VEGF medications.
Although it was a preliminary study the results suggested pretreating with Pegpleranib will not only lead to better visual acuity but it will also increase the duration of effectiveness of the anti-VEGF medication and, in addition, prevent fibrosis. Hold on…fibrosis? Be back soon with some info on THAT little wrinkle.
I’m back. After a day that finally saw 70 degrees Fahrenheit and a hip hop class, all is right in my little world. Keep me warm and let me dance. It appears I am pitifully easy to please!
Onward…I am looking in EyeWiki and found an interesting bit of info – not related to fibrosis, but interesting. EyeWiki quotes the cost of neovascular AMD as being $5.396 billion annually and the cost of dry AMD as being $24.395 annually. That is loss of GDP, gross domestic product. I TOLD you this stuff is breaking the bank. Now do you believe me? ?
OK. EyeWiki says there are fibrous disciform scars formed when there are bleeds. Regular Wikipedia says fibrosis is related to the process of scarring. The process apparently starts when the macrophages – remember the big eaters? – that are sent to clean up the mess from the bleed start secreting a chemical that will trigger the fibrosis. It all keeps coming back to the complement immune system. It appears the Pegpleranib dampens down the chemical signal the macrophages send out and reduces the fibrosis.
The Wikipedia piece goes into a whole lot of explanation about the chemical process that I about half understood. Feel free to look at it if you are interested in that sort of stuff. Social scientist here; remember?
That is about it for now. I have places to go, people to see, dogs to walk , a lesson plan to write and all sorts of housework to avoid?. I will try to check in later with more gems from my mailbox…or not. Caio!
written April 29th, 2018