New treatment gets final FDA nod

Optometric Management,  May 2000  

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More than 200,000 people in North America develop the wet form of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) each year. Now, many Americans will be offered a new treatment in Visudyne therapy.

CIBA Vision and QLT Photo Therapeutics Inc. announce that the FDA has approved Visudyne (verteporfin for injection) therapy for the treatment of wet AMD in patients with predominantly classic subfoveal choroidal neovascularization (CNV).

Visudyne therapy can be performed in a doctor's office and consists of just two stages:

1. A light-activated drug called Visudyne is injected intravenously into the patient's arm. It accumulates in the abnormal vessels in the eye.

2. The drug is activated by shining non-thermal laser light into the patient's eye for approximately 90 seconds. Once activated, Visudyne affects the abnormal blood vessels resulting in a reduction of growth of these blood vessels and a corresponding reduction or stabilization of vision loss. Visudyne therapy doesn't appear to damage normal retina vessels on fluorescein angiography.

The process takes place on an outpatient basis in a doctor's office.

Trials indicate that Visudyne therapy can preserve vision in a significant number of patients. Multiple treatments were safe and effective if the abnormal blood vessels began to re-leak. In fact, it was found that the area of leakage decreased with each successive treatment.

The therapy doesn't restore vision in eyes that have suffered longstanding vision loss or have already been damaged by AMD. The most frequently reported adverse events include injection site reactions and visual disturbances.

For additional information, visit www.visudyne.com.

Copyright Boucher Communications, Inc. May 2000
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