Treatments of Dry AMD

Abstract

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the most common cause of legal blindness among those over 65 years of age in the United States (Mitchell et al., 1995; Klein et al., 1992). It is also a debilitating disease on central vision in patients over 50 years old (Ambati et al., 2003). As the baby boom generation ages, the incidence of AMD is expected to triple by the year 2025. It was first described in the medical literature as symmetrical central choroidoretinal disease occurring in senile persons (Hutchison 1875). It was not until 1980 that AMD was regenerated to be a significant cause of blindness in the United States (Leibowitz et al., 1980). Even though the prevalence of AMD is highest among Caucasians in western countries, Asians are as high as Caucasians in the development of AMD (Wang et al, 2010). In 2004, WHO estimated that there are 14 million persons worldwide suffering from blindness or severely impaired vision because of AMD. As the population in the Western World is growing older, the morbidity of losing the ability to read and drive resulting from AMD is becoming increasingly apparent (Klein, 1997). A 2004 analysis reported that among Americans over the age of 40, AMD and/or geographic atrophy were present in at least one eye in 1.47% of the population (Friedman et al., 2004). By the year 2020, there may be a 50% increase in the incidence of AMD. The study predicted that as a result of the rising prevalence of AMD, the number of blind people in the U.S. could increase by as much as 70% by 2020 (Congdon et al., 2004). Because of the enormous impact of AMD on the aging population, much public attention and research has been focused on this condition in the past decade.