New research progress on the epidemiology of age - related macular degeneration / 国际眼科杂志(Guoji Yanke Zazhi)

ABSTRACT

Age-related macular degeneration ( AMD ) is a kind of age-related blinding degenerative fundus lesions, totally about 30 million patients suffering from AMD all over the world, with about 500 000 people blind for it yearly. As the development of economy and the aging of the population intensified, incidence of AMD indicates a trend of rising year by year, being the third major cause of blindness in our country. At present, the pathogenesis of AMD is not fully clear, as reported it may be related to oxidative stress, inflammatory immune response, VEGF and genetic manipulation. Clinical treatments mainly include photodynamic therapy, drug therapy, radiation therapy, laser photocoagulaory operation, the pupil warm treatments, Chinese medicine and intravitreous injection VEGF antagonists such as Ranibizumab, Conbercept and so on. ln this issue, we mainly expound on the progress in the epidemiological studies of AMD, especially elaborate the progress made on genetic manipulation in recent years.