Los AngelesResearchers are poised for federal approval of treatment that could halt or prevent devastating vision loss from the most damaging form of age-related macular degeneration (ARMD), a development they describe as part of a therapeutic renaissance touched off by new photosensitizing agents.
"Photodynamic therapy is currently under review by the Food and Drug Administration [FDA], and we're hoping it will be approved for use in early 2000," said Joan W. Miller, MD, associate professor of ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School, during a seminar sponsored by Research to Prevent Blindness, a New Yorkbased vision research foundation.
If photodynamic therapy receives the FDA's blessing, Miller added, "it will be the first new treatment for macular degeneration that's come out and been shown to be effective in a large clinical trial since the laser was introduced in the '70s."
DRUG AND LASER COMBINATION
Photodynamic therapy has been designed for . . . [Full Text of this Article]