ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION In recent years, the introduction of ranibizumab (Lucentis®, Genentech, South San Francisco, California, USA), bevacizumab (Avastin®, Genentech), and afl ibercept (Eylea®, Regeneron, Tarrytown, New York, USA) has revolutionized the treatment of patients with neovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD) (1). In contrast, no pharmacotherapy has yet proven successful for the treatment of patients with the advanced atrophic form of AMD-geographic atrophy (GA) (2). A large number of therapeutic approaches are under development with a view to rectifying this situation; of these, stem cell-based therapies are among the most promising (3). In fact, the human eye has a number of desirable features for the application of stem cells and the fi rst human trials of embryonic stem cells have recently been performed in patients with retinal degenerative disease (4). In this chapter, we provide an overview of work performed to date in the development of stem cell therapies for AMD; perhaps more importantly however, we provide a framework for clinicians by which the rapid advances that are likely to occur in the coming years can be easily understood.
