Macular degeneration Treatment

Could this be used for FEVR???/

Age-related macular degeneration is a leading cause of legal blindness of older adults. The disease can take two forms, "wet" or "dry." Although only 10% of patients with macular degeneration have the "wet" form, this group accounts for almost 90% of those who become legally blind. The current treatment for the "wet" form is laser photocoagulation, which, unfortunately, causes almost as much vision loss as the disease itself (average decrease of 3 lines on the eye chart immediately after treatment).

Low-dose radiation therapy has been used for many years to treat blood vessel disorders. The "wet" age-related macular degeneration is a blood vessel disorder of the eye. Loma Linda investigators have used protons since 1994 to treat the "wet" form of this disease; careful studies have been proposed and have been conducted to evaluate the optimum dose and develop a suitable model for studying long-term effects. Results have been encouraging at the dose level currently used. With the current dose level, most patients have shown improvement in blood vessel lesions. After several months of follow-up, the average loss of vision was zero.

Proton treatment is painless and takes about 1 minute, while patient positioning before treatment requires approximately 15 minutes. Patients over 90 years of age have been treated without difficulty.

To inquire about possible treatment of this condition

In my research about proton beam radiation I have found a number of articles that state that proton beam radation(extremely focused) seems effective for "wet" macular degeneration. I do not know if this of any particular interest to your Mom, but there are two centers in the US. One is at Loma Linda and the other is at Mass. General.