"It's not a question of if we'll end blindness. It's really just a question of when."

BRYAN CHRISTIE
Injected anti-VEGF agents can help reverse eye damage and stabilize vision.

Peter Jaret reports at the AARP Bulletin,

If you had seen Lisa Kulik and her husband strolling the grounds of the University of Southern California's Eye Institute last summer, you would have thought nothing of it. But for Kulik, that simple walk around the campus was "a miracle." Blind for more than two decades from an inherited eye disease called retinitis pigmentosa, Kulik was seeing again — clearly enough to make out the sidewalk and the grassy edge — thanks to a sophisticated microchip implanted in one of her eyes.

The device, called the Argus II, is just one of a growing number of bold new approaches to treating blindness, offering hope to the millions of mostly older Americans in danger of losing their sight from macular degeneration, glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy and other eye diseases. In fact, progress in ophthalmology is so rapid that some researchers have already begun to envision an end to many forms of vision loss. "We still have a lot to learn," admits Stephen Rose, chief research officer for the Foundation Fighting Blindness. "But it's not a question of if we'll end blindness. It's really just a question of when."

For years, Joe Vellone, 76, watched his sight gradually deteriorate from age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a condition in which the light-sensitive cells of the macula — the central part of the retina — are destroyed. "My vision was so bad I'd walk right by people I know because I didn't see them. I couldn't read at all," says Vellone, who lives in Somers, N.Y., with his wife.

Last year surgeons inserted a telescope implant manufactured by VisionCare into one of his eyes. Like a stargazing telescope, the tiny device magnifies a small area and projects the image across the whole retina, allowing healthy cells to make it out. "It changed my life," says Vellone. "I'm reading again. I'm able to see football games on TV. Last summer I was able to see well enough to plant a garden again — eggplants, tomatoes, peppers."

The VisionCare telescope implant recently won FDA approval for patients 65 and older with end-stage AMD. The telescope is implanted only in one eye, so that the other eye continues to have full peripheral vision.

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