It
is called AMD-Fab and it is drawing rave reviews from doctors
and patients alike who say the experimental new medicine that
attacks the misguided growth of blood vessels in the eyes is
rescuing people from the brink of blindness.
Around the country, about 70 patients with wet macular degeneration
have been treated with Genentech's AMD-Fab (also known as rhuFab),
an anti-VEGF monoclonal antibody fragment that is currently
being evaluated in an U.S.FDA study for patients with wet AMD.
AMD-Fab is among an entirely new category of drugs designed
to stop the wet form of macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy.
Vision loss seems halted for most if they take the drugs soon
after their symptoms begin. Some experience stunning reversals
of what would have been inevitable blindness. About half were
treated by Dr. Jeffrey Heier of Ophthalmic Consultants of Boston,
who says, "I can honestly say I have never seen anything as
exciting as this." One study patient, Eileen Russell, 76, enjoys
reading books again at home in Worcester, Mass., after receiving
an experimental drug to treat her macular degeneration. Russell
was legally blind, but four days after a shot of rhuFab she
could see again. After the full treatment, the vision in her
affected eye is 20/25.
Experts caution that most of the results from the studies on
this and similar drugs will not be known for at least a year
or two. And for now, the treatments are available only to study
volunteers.
