Macular Degeneration Treatment Tips

Have you been advised by your eye or retinal specialist to treat your macular degeneration symptoms with eye injections?

If so please read on….

In 2006 the U.S Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the drug Lucentis for the treatment of wet amd or macular degeneration wet as it also known.

Clinical trials showed that Lucentis, administered via injection approximately every four weeks, slowed the progression of vision loss. Some people even reported improved vision. Great news for those with this essentially incurable condition.

Before the approval of Lucentis another drug, Avastin, was approved by the FDA specifically for the treatment of colon cancer. Retinal specialists were also allowed to use the drug Avastin for "off-label" use to treat wet AMD.

Lucentis and Avastin both work in a similar way against the blood vessel growth which is a factor in macular degeneration wet.

Despite the more recent approval of Lucentis many retinal specialists have continued to use Avastin because it costs a lot less than Lucentis. Lucentis costs about $2,000 per injection which is about 40 times more expensive than Avastin!

In December 2008 Genentech, the drug company which distributes Avastin and Lucentis in the US, revealed to doctors that a number of patients had suffered eye inflammation after being injected with Avastin. Eye inflammation is also a risk factor with Lucentis but the number of inflammations from the Avastin injections was unusually high. According to Genentech most of the eye inflammation cases were eventually traced to a single batch of the Avastin drug.

If you are considering the use of Avastin macular injections it might be wise to discuss your options with your retinal specialist in light of these recent findings.