The advance and application of radiotherapy in exudative age-related macular degeneration / 中华眼底病杂志

ABSTRACT

Exudative or wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is characterized by the progressive growth of choroidal neovascularization (CNV).Anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) drugs have been used in the control of the development of CNV and vision improvement,but there are still defects like frequent injections,drug resistance and so on.Radiotherapy can deactivate local inflammatory cell populations,and make CNV unstable in the absence ofpericytes and VEGF stimulation,which induce apoptosis of the vascular endothelial cells.Therefore,radiotherapy is considered as a potential adjuvant treatment of anti-VEGF therapy.The current clinical approaches include epimacular brachytherapy (EMBT) and long-range stereotactic radiotherapy (SRT).SRT may be a preferred adjuvant treatment for patients receiving anti-VEGF therapy.Knowing the progress of radiotherapy for the treatment of exudative AMD may help us to fully understand the pathogenesis of wAMD in China