People suffering with the dry form of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) do not currently have therapy options but researchers are hopeful that a non-invasive therapy known as photobiomodulation can slow the progression of the disease.
Photobiomodulation is currently a therapy that is used to treat a whole host of conditions ranging from musculoskeletal, neurological and inflammatory as well as diabetic retinopathy and retinitis pigmentosa. The treatment is painless and utilizes different wavelengths of light to improve cellular function in the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cells that are at the back of the eye.
A recent, small study of 100 patients with high-risk intermediate AMD was split into two groups. One group received photobiomodulation and the other group received a sham treatment. Patients were treated three times a week for three weeks and the treatment was repeated every four months.
Results were promising after two years of treatment. 53 percent of those receiving photobiomodulation had an improvement of more than five letters in their best corrected visual acuity while 18 percent of those in the sham group lost more than five letters of vision. In addition, the treated patients saw a 73 percent reduction in new onset geographic atrophy compared to a 24 percent incidence of the progression of the disease in those who were not treated.
Researchers hope that photobiomodulation therapy will allow ophthalmologists to treat AMD at an earlier stage of the disease before the loss of RPE cells is irreparable.
