Mini reservoir in the eye with anti-maculopathy drug

“Maculopathy is becoming a social problem, it is the major cause of visual impairment in post-senile age. At Gemini we are experimenting with a very small reservoir, which surgically inserted into the wall of the eye and loaded with a drug that counteracts maculopathy, releases it. small doses. A technique that allows the treatment to be extended every six months because the tank can be filled with a microneedle by the ophthalmologist. In the US it has been approved by the FDA, while we, together with other centers, are in Phase 3 of the experimentation “. Stanislao Rizzo, professor of Ophthalmology at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Rome and director of the Ophthalmology Unit of the Gemelli Irccs Polyclinic Foundation, underlines this to Adnkronos Salute, “With aging, problems on the retina increase – recalls Rizzo – And ‘the noblest and most sophisticated tissue of our organism that transforms the images we capture into an electrical impulse that goes from the optic nerve to the brain. In the over 65s, maculopathy is growing, when it is the dry form the tissue is consumed and we cannot The wet form of maculopathy is characterized by the fact that fluid and blood are lost, on this form we have the intravitreal injections on which we have made some progress, because today we have moved on to treatments that last longer over time “. remember that 90% of maculopathies are of the dry form, “the retina has 8 layers and transplantation is a difficult road, but there are some ways that the research is beating: the first is a drug that acts against inflammation, in the US a study has shown that it can be promising “. The second way is “stem cells” and “in the US, a Niaid government study, aims to inject stem cells under the retina. Then there are gene therapies, or injecting a modified virus into the patient’s eye that carries the gene, this can make the cells produce the substances they should have. Finally, the fourth way is the artificial retina “which was implanted at the Gemelli Polyclinic in Rome” on a 70-year-old blind patient due to an inherited retinal disease “. Then there is the artificial intelligence that can “help in the diagnosis, today we have the tools and algorithms that tell us with great certainty with the fundus examination whether we are dealing with a wet or dry form of maculopathy”, he concludes. Rizzo.