Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a debilitating eye disease that affects over 9 million Americans. For many people, it’s a progressive condition that leads to vision loss. Fortunately, there is hope. Recent studies have shown that stem cell treatment for AMD shows promise. Stem cell therapy uses cells from a patient’s own body to treat various diseases and injuries. In the case of AMD, this involves treating the underlying cause of the condition: damage to the macula. So far, stem cell treatment for AMD has shown promising results in clinical trials.
What is Age-Related Macular Degeneration?
Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is an incurable eye disease that progress over time, destroying the macula, a central area of the retina. AMD can severely limit a person’s vision and cause them to become legally blind. There is currently no cure for AMD, but treatments are available that can help manage the condition.
One treatment option is stem cell therapy. Stem cells are cells that can differentiate into any type of tissue in the body. Injections of autologous adult stem cells into the eyes of patients with AMD improved vision and slowed the progression of the disease. More recently, clinical trials have shown that transplanting human embryonic stem cells into eyes also improves vision in people with AMD.
What Causes Age-Related Macular Degeneration?
There is no one cause for age-related macular degeneration (AMD), which is a leading cause of blindness in the United States. It is a result of the gradual destruction of the optic nerve, which transmits images from your eyes to your brain. The most common symptom is a loss of vision in one or both eyes. There is no cure for AMD, but there are treatments that can help improve symptoms.
The most common treatment for AMD is laser therapy. This uses narrowband light — specifically, near-infrared light — to destroy the abnormal proteins that are causing damage to the eye. While not a cure, laser therapy can improve vision in many people with AMD. Another option for treating AMD is stem cell therapy. Stem cells are cells that have the ability to develop into other types of cells and tissues. In stem cell therapy, stem cells are extracted from a person’s blood or bone marrow and injected into the eye.
The hope is that these stem cells will grow and repair damage caused by AMD. While there has been some promising research on using stem cell therapy for AMD.
How Does Stem Cell Treatment Work for Age-Related Macular Degeneration?
Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a leading cause of blindness and, according to the National Eye Institute, “the number of people with AMD will continue to grow as the population ages.” In AMD, the delicate cells in the eye that create images break down and damage the retina, leading to vision loss.
There is no cure for AMD, but there are treatments available that can slow or stop its progression. The most common treatment is laser surgery to remove diseased tissue from the eye. However, this approach only works if it’s done soon after the disease starts. As AMD progresses, it becomes more difficult and expensive to remove diseased tissue surgically.
In recent years, stem cell therapy has been shown to be an effective treatment for AMD. Stem cells are special types of cells that can divide indefinitely and are capable of creating all sorts of different tissues in the body. In stem cell therapy for AMD, stem cells are taken from a patient’s blood or bone marrow and injected into the eye.
Stem Cell Treatment Methods Used for AMD
There are a variety of stem cell treatment methods used for age-related macular degeneration (AMD), and each has its own potential benefits and drawbacks. Some treatments use embryonic stem cells, which are thought to be more effective than adult stem cells because they can multiply more quickly. However, embryonic stem cells may also be controversial because they are derived from embryos. Other treatments use induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), which can be made from any type of cell. They are less controversial since they can be made from any tissue, and the risk that they will become cancerous is much lower than with embryonic stem cells. Treatment with iPSCs has been shown to improve vision in some patients with AMD, but more research is needed to determine whether this is true for all patients or only certain ones.
Results of the Stem Cell Treatment Studies for AMD
According to a study published in the journal Lancet Ophthalmology, stem cell treatment may be effective for age-related macular degeneration (AMD). The study involved 36 patients who received either autologous mesenchymal stem cells or 150 million collected AMD eye cells. After two years, 18 out of 36 patients who received the stem cells had improved vision, while six out of 36 patients who received the eye cells had no improvement.
While this is just one study, it provides promising results and shows that further research is warranted into the use of stem cells for AMD.
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