Tisudyne is a promising treatment You may soon have another weapon in your arsenal for fighting that toughest of opponents, age-related macular degeneration (AMD).
QLT PhotoTherapeutics and CIBA Vision, co-developers of Visudyne (verteporfin) therapy, recently announced that initial analysis of Phase III study results indicate that this treatment can preserve vision in many patients with the wet form of AMD. Verteporfin is injected intravenously into the patient's arm, and it selectively accumulates in the eye's abnormal vessels. Then the drug is activated by a nonthermal laser shined into the eye. In the study, which comprised 609 patients, vision was stable or improved in 61.4% of those treated with verteporfin compared to 45.9% given placebo. This means that patients treated with verteporfin were 34% likelier to retain their vision than control group patients.
QLT PhotoTherapeutics and CIBA Vision plan to file for approval for the therapy in the United States, Canada and Europe this year.
Copyright Boucher Communications, Inc. Feb 1999
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