Cash help for eye treatment venture NEW technology being developed to deliver sight-saving treatment to the inside of the eye has won almost £160,000 in grants to develop the idea commercially in Northumberland. Ophthalmologist and medical researcher Dr Alan Whitmore set up Lumemed Ltd to take forward his idea of treating blindness-causing common conditions using light and magnetic fields. Currently, the only available treatment uses a needle to inject drugs into the eye, which can affect the surrounding tissues. The full story can be found at  https://www.nebusiness.co.uk

More Effective Treatment Identified for Common Childhood Vision Disorder Scientists have found a more effective treatment for a common childhood eye muscle coordination problem called convergence insufficiency (CI). For words on a page to appear in focus a child’s eyes must turn inward, or converge. In CI, the eyes do not converge easily, and as a result, additional muscular effort must be used to make the eyes turn in. Read more at : https://www.nei.nih.gov/news/pressreleases/101308.asp

Promising Results in Phase 1 Gene Therapy Trial for Blinding Disease Three young adults with an inherited form of blindness showed evidence of improved day and night vision following a specialized gene transfer procedure in a phase 1 clinical trial funded by the National Eye Institute (NEI), part of the National Institutes of Health. In addition no adverse effects from the therapy were reported. Read more at: https://www.nei.nih.gov  

Visions of the Future: Telescopic Eyeglasses Improve Myopic Sight Nearsightedness, also known as myopia, is one of the most common visual defects, afflicting more than 2 billion people worldwide. This condition results when the eyeball is too long or the cornea angle is too steep to focus light on the retina at the back of the eye, causing far-away objects to appear blurry or distorted. With the aid of eyeglasses or contact lenses, light can be refocused so that it properly travels through the eye's vitreous humor to the retina. Read more at: https://infoweb.newsbank.com.eresources.shef.ac.uk The Plexus Encyclopedia of Medicine, Science, and Technology, Volume 5, Issue 100

  Older Treatment May Be More Effective in Preserving Sight for Some Patients with Diabetes New Drug Treatment Not as Successful and had More Side Effects than Laser Treatment A promising new drug therapy used to treat abnormal swelling in the eye-a condition called diabetic macular edema-proved less effective than traditional laser treatments in a study funded by the National Eye Institute (NEI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The study, published online in July in the journal Ophthalmology, demonstrates that laser therapy is not only more effective than corticosteroids in the long term treatment of diabetic macular edema, but also has far fewer side effects.  Read more at: https://www.nei.nih.gov

World’s first gene therapy for inherited blindness Improvements to sight shown in results of world’s first gene therapy for inherited blindness UK researchers from the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology and Moorfields Eye Hospital NIHR Biomedical Research Centre have announced results from the world’s first clinical trial to test a revolutionary gene therapy treatment for a type of inherited blindness. The results, published today in the New England Journal of Medicine, show that the experimental treatment is safe and can improve sight. The findings are a landmark for gene therapy technology and could have a significant impact on future treatments for eye disease. Read more at: https://www.moorfields.nhs.uk