Iridex Corporation says that results of recent studies indicate hope for your older patients with not only the wet form of age related macular degeneration (AMD), but also the harder-to-treat dry form.

Elias Reichel, M.D., and colleagues at the New England Eye Center, Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, Mass., performed a retrospective study of 16 eyes with subfoveal occult wet AMD. The eyes underwent transpupillary thermotherapy (TTT) using Iridex's Iris Medical OcuLight Slx 810 laser, which is still awaiting FDA approval. TTT improved vision by two or more Snellen lines in 19%, and stabilized vision in 56%. Fifteen eyes (94%) showed a reduction in subretinal fluid.

Similarly, researchers at Kings College in London, England, treated 42 eyes of patients with occult and classic subfoveal choroidal neovascularization (CNV) using TTT. The 22 eyes with occult CNV showed the best results. CNV resolved in 16 eyes (71%), persisted in 5 eyes (23%) and recurred in one eye (5%). Visual acuity stabilized (2 lines) in 19 eyes (86%), showed a mild loss (2.5 lines) in three eyes and suffered severe loss in no eyes.

Joseph Olk, M.D., Director of the Retina Center of St. Louis, Mo., did a pilot study of 229 eyes with dry AMD, randomized to treatment with the OcuLight laser or observation only. Two-year results showed the accumulated deposits (drusen) of early dry AMD were reduced or eliminated in 68% of treated eyes vs. 3% of observed eyes. Visual acuity improved in most treated patients.

TTT delivers heat to the back of an eye using the OcuLight Slx laser. This creates localized hyperthermia, which closes the choroidal vessels.