Drug lifts blindness threat for thousands
By Nigel Hawkes, Health Editor
October 05, 2006

A CONDITION that causes thousands of Britons to go blind every year can be halted and even reversed with a monthly injection.

Trials into a treatment for age-related macular degeneration (AMD), which is diagnosed in more than 20,000 elderly people a year and is the commonest cause of blindness, have shown dramatic results for almost all who use it.

Patients given Lucentis did not only have the gradual deterioration of their sight halted, but even regained vision lost to the disease. For decades, patients with the condition, which leaves 10 per cent of sufferers blind, have been told there is little or nothing that can be done to slow the disease, let alone reverse it. the rest