Peeking inside AMD

Conflicting results from two 2012 studies made it unclear whether IL-18 was a cause of or a potential therapy for age-related macular degeneration.^1,2 A tiebreaker study suggests the latter, showing that the cytokine was at least as effective as a VEGF inhibitor in mouse models of wet age-related macular degeneration.³

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of blindness in people older than 65 and affects 30-50 million people worldwide. In about 10% of patients, the disease progresses to the wet form, which is characterized by choroidal neovascularization (CNV)-newly sprouting blood vessels originating from the outer vascular layer of the eye...