Macular Degeneration Prognosis

What is My Age-Related Macular Degeneration Prognosis?

Wet AMD

Age-related macular degeneration affects individuals' vision to varying degrees. The pictures shown here are a general representation of damage to central vision.

The "prognosis" of a disease or condition is the course it is expected to follow. Will it get worse? Will it get better? Will it stay the same and not progress? If you have age-related macular degeneration (AMD), you will definitely want to ask your eye doctor about your prognosis. However, it is important to understand that it is difficult if not impossible for doctors to predict your personal age-related macular degeneration prognosis with 100% accuracy. AMD is a highly complex condition, and it behaves differently in each person. Each person responds to the available treatments differently as well.

A considerable amount of research is currently being done to identify as many clues as possible to how and why AMD progresses. The more clues identified, the better able doctors will be to fully understand age-related macular degeneration prognosis and effectively treat patients, including you.

Even though much remains to be learned about the course of AMD, doctors have been able to make some generalizations, which can help you to understand your situation. For example, if you have been told you have early AMD, you have abnormal deposits, called drusen, building up under your retina. At this point the deposits are not likely causing any symptoms, meaning your vision is not affected. The drusen may stay the same for years or forever, or they may grow and/or increase in number.

If your drusen increase in size or number, you would then have intermediate AMD. With intermediate AMD, you may notice changes in your vision. You may feel as if you need brighter light to do close-up things such as read, write or knit. You may see a blurry spot in the middle of your vision. Intermediate AMD at this stage is also referred to as "dry" or "atrophic" AMD.

Having dry AMD affects your age-related macular degeneration prognosis. It is possible that your vision will not get much worse than it is at this point because dry AMD sometimes progresses very slowly. However, when you have AMD in one eye, it is more likely that you will also get it in the other eye. Although at least some of your straight-ahead vision in one eye would likely be spared, having dry AMD also increases the chances that your AMD will progress to more advanced forms.

What Does It Mean if My AMD is Advanced?

There are two forms of advanced AMD. One occurs if your dry AMD continues to progress until the light-sensitive cells in the center of your retina (the macula) are severely damaged. Your eye doctor may refer to this as "geographic atrophy." The other form of advanced AMD is the wet form, also called "neovascular" or "exudative." Everyone who gets wet AMD had the dry form first. Unfortunately, there is no way to tell if or when the dry form will turn into the wet form. If it does, it means that new blood vessels have formed under your retina. These new vessels are part of your body's attempt to heal itself, but they are abnormal and weak. Because of this, they tend to leak blood and fluid, causing further, and faster, damage to the tissues and cells of the retina. If wet AMD goes untreated, your macular degeneration prognosis is poor. Scars - a sign of irreversible damage - can form in the retina.

Both advanced forms of AMD are capable of causing severe vision loss. When you discuss your macular degeneration prognosis with your eye doctor, be sure to ask what you can do to improve it. He or she will be able to advise you about steps you can take to help you avoid reaching an advanced form, or ways to live the fullest life possible despite it.

Hope for the future? New clinical trials.

NeoVista, Inc. is a company that is developing an intraocular epiretinal radiation device intended for the treatment of the wet form of age-related macular degeneration. If you, or someone you know, are interested in participating in the CABERNET Trial, please follow the link below:

What is My Age-Related Macular Degeneration Prognosis?

What is My Age-Related Macular Degeneration Prognosis?

What Does It Mean if My AMD is Advanced?

Hope for the future? New clinical trials.

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