ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of blindness in the elderly population in the Western world (1), and severe vision loss occurs due to the development of choroidal neovascularization or geographic atrophy. Ninety percent of AMD patients who experience severe vision loss do so as a result of choroidal neovascularization (2), which represents the growth of neovascular tissue from the choriocapillaris, within Bruch’s membrane, and eventually into the subretinal pigment epithelial and/or subretinal space. Developing new treatments that prevent or reverse vision loss in AMD is of paramount importance due to the severe visual loss that occurs with this condition and the knowledge that disease prevalence will increase with a shift in the demographics of western populations to older ages. Geographic atrophy accounts for the remainder of the vision loss due to AMD. The Beaver Dam studies have placed the incidence of pure geographic atrophy at 1.3% (2). Geographic atrophy refers to loss of the retinal pigment epithelium, choriocapillaris, and the overlying outer retina (3). While the risk factors of geographic atrophy have been identifi ed (4), there is currently a lack of approved therapies for geographic atrophy.
