This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citation map  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Leonard A. Levin, MD, PhD

JAMA. 1996;275(23):1834-1836.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

Diabetic retinopathy is a leading cause of blindness in the United States. Most severe visual loss associated with diabetes is related to the development of neovascularization of retinal vessels, with the potential for vitreous hemorrhage, retinal detachment, and other complications. It is thought that hypoxia serves as a stimulus for angiogenesis, but until recently the mechanism by which hypoxia-related neovascularization occurs has been unclear. In the past 2 years evidence has accrued that vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) may be a major component in this process.

Specifically, samples of ocular fluids from eyes of patients with proliferative diabetic retinopathy and other proliferative disorders contain elevated levels of VEGF, sufficient to cause neovascularization.^1,2 In monkeys, development of iris neovascularization induced by laser retinal vein occlusion parallels a rise in aqueous humor and retinal VEGF,³ and neutralizing antibodies to VEGF block this rise.⁴ The time course is rapid; messenger . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
University of Wisconsin Medical School, Madison

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?