Anti-blindness with eye drops instead of injections

The treatment of diseases that can cause blindness by injecting drugs directly into the eyeball (which is expensive and uncomfortable for patients) is about to be replaced by a small method of medicine. That is the affirmation of experts at Lon Don University (UCL, UK), after they successfully tested animals.

Photo: panorama.com.ve

This new step promises to be of great benefit to millions of patients treated for age-related macular degeneration (AMD) - a disease that affects 20% of people over 75 years of age and is more likely to cause blindness. The reason is that before, molecules of drugs such as Avastin and Lucentis (AMD-specific drugs) were thought to be too large to penetrate the retina during eye drops treatment.

But now, the team has demonstrated that they can use nanoparticles containing Avastin to deliver a certain amount of drug to the back of the eyeball in rabbits and mice. In particular, Avastin is transported through the wall of the cornea into the back of the eye, where the drug helps to stop leaking blood vessels, while forming new blood vessels.

Therefore, theoretically, the team thinks that we can also apply this technique to other drugs such as Lucentis (which has a smaller molecular structure than Avastin).

Currently, the technology transfer company of UCL - UCL Business - has been granted a patent for this small technology and the research team said it is looking for a trading partner to soon conduct clinical trials on humans. .