New treatment options, better hope of preventing vision loss from diabetes

[Northerner]

This National Diabetes Month, there is some good news for people with eye complications from diabetes. Earlier this month, a network of researchers supported by the National Eye Institute (NEI) found that the drug Lucentis (ranibizumab) can be highly effective for treating proliferative diabetic retinopathy, an eye disease that can occur as a complication of diabetes. The researchers, part of the Diabetic Retinopathy Clinical Research Network, say this is the first major advance in therapy in 40 years.

Diabetic retinopathy is the leading cause of vision loss and blindness among working-age Americans. An advanced stage, called proliferative diabetic retinopathy, occurs when abnormal blood vessels grow near the retina, the light-sensitive tissue at the back of the eye. These new vessels can leak blood, which can obscure vision and damage the retina. Lucentis is one of several drugs called VEGF inhibitors that can block this process.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/11/151119163124.htm

 

[trophywench]

Did we not already know this? - or were they using Lucentis for something different at the time, or was it a clinical trial that eg Oxford were involved in?

 

[Northerner]

Did we not already know this? - or were they using Lucentis for something different at the time, or was it a clinical trial that eg Oxford were involved in?

Yes, it's another deja vu finding as far as I'm concerned - there was a huge fuss at least two years ago about the cost of lucentis 🙄

 

[trophywench]

Oh good! (always glad when I remember things right, you know what they say about your memory when you get older! LOL)