Stargardt’s disease is an eye disease that occurs in children or juvenile aged people. It is usually inherited from the parents to the offspring and causes loss of vision such that after a point of time the person is liable to become completely blind. Stargardt’s disease starts in children between the age of six and twelve and progresses as the eyes age, reducing visual activity and making it very hard for such little children if they have this eye disease. [click to continue…]
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According to a newly published study, the risk of macular degeneration is lowered through the consumption of fish and shellfish. Research at the Wilmer Eye Institute, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland has shown that omega-3 fatty acids can affect processes associated with macular degeneration and the development of macular degeneration, reducing the risks associated with this eye disease.
In the current study investigators showed consumption of fish and shellfish provided some protection against advanced macular degeneration.
This research provides support for other studies showing the value of fish and omega-3 fatty acids in helping prevent macular degeneration.
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Scientists from the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research in Switzerland have announced a possible cure for degenerative vision diseases such as macular degeneration.
By manipulating proteins that cause blindness in mice, scientists have successfully restored the vision in the light sensitive cells of the retina.
Eye diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa (an incurable genetic eye disease) and macular degeneration generally attack the cells in the retina resulting in blindness.
In this new research, scientists were able to restore vision in blind mice with congenital macular degeneration. The same technology and approach shows great promise for restoring partial vision in blind patients.
Until recently, patients suffering from many degenerative eye diseases such as macular degeneration had limited treatement options.
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Patients suffering from the eye disease macular degeneration now have access to a new treatment. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a tiny telescope that’s implanted into the eye in patients with advanced macular degeneration.
In a recent news release by the FDA, it was indicated this tiny telescope will replace the natural lens in the eye and magnify items more than two times.
Macular Degeneration patients over 75 years of age who have blind spots associated with the eye disease is who this device is aimed at.
Candidates will have to be trained with an external telescopic device to determine if they will benefit from the implanted telescope.
Macular Degeneration attacks the central vision and results in a severe visual impairment in about 25 percent of those patients suffering with the eye disease.
This new tiny eye implant will come with a warning indicating the device puts users at a greater risk of injury to the eye’s cornea.
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Macular Translocation Surgery is for patients losing their vision as a result of the eye disease macular degeneration.
Macular Degeneration attacks the central vision of those with the eye disease and macular translocation surgery can be used to lift the macula away from the underlying blood vessels and attach it to a new and more healthier portion. This will restore the central vision that is damaged by macular degeneration.
Macular translocation surgery is only meant to treat patients with wet macular degeneration. In this form of macular degeneration leaking blood vessels have formed beneath the retina and moving the macula to a more healthier spot will improve central vision. This eye surgery is not recommended for every patient who has macular degeneration and best results have been shown for those people who are in the early stages of the eye disease.
In macular translocation surgery, the eye surgeon will pinch the outer part of the eye called the sclera. With the sclera pinched, the surgeon will place a suture into the wall of the eye to keep it pinched. This will shorten its length as well as buckle the retina.
Once the suture is in place, the eye surgeon will inject a saline solution into the eye under the retina, causing it to lift up, allowing it to be moved approximately 0.3 and 0.4 mm without detaching it. After the retina is moved, a gas bubble is injected into the eye to hold the retina in location until it heals.
Another side benefit of relocating the retina during macular translocation surgery is it provides access to the previously covered blood vessels thus allowing treatment without harming the retina.
Duke Eye Center have refined macular translocation surgery into a technique called macular translocation surgery with 360 degree peripheral retinectomy (MT360). This is a two-stage surgery that involves rotating the retina to move the macula away from the abnormal blood vessels associated with macular degeneration and then correcting the tilted visual field by rotating the eye.
Macular translocation surgery does have some risks associated with it including retinal detachment, bleeding, double vision, and residual tilting of vision. All of these risks can be either corrected surgically or with special glasses.
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