Macular & Lucentis

[bunkywoo]

My father received his first treatment of Lucentis a few weeks ago. The first week he thought he had seen some improvement in his vision.  His vision had gone from being able to read the newspaper to being unable to, even with his reading glasses. He can see TV OK and can drive OK as well. Over the past few days however, he thinks that his vision had gotten worse, but then kind of returned to the point he was at before his first treatment.

I guess I'm asking if anyone else is going through treatment with Lucentis right now and whether it is improving their vision or keeping it status quo.

This is pretty frightening since he went from dry to wet and the wet just escalated at an alarming speed.

Thanks for any and all comments.

Laurie

[dukey]

Yeh Dr Hagan is so right. These new drugs really are a miracle and should be getting way more press. In some countries (i.e. UK) you still cannot get access to these easily so, at the very least, be thankful that you have the option.

Most of the literature indicates multiple treatments with the same drug and/or switching to other drugs (i.e. Avastin) before bleeding is halted or does not recur in ARMD. Be careful with what you read as many of the immediated effects of this drug come about because the drug is also used to treat the same type of bleeding (CNV) in myopic patients. This bleeding tends to be more self-limiting and less severe than in ARMD. Stick with it though and be hopeful his eye will be saved.

[John C Hagan III, MD, FACS, FAAO]

Your father has a very serious problem that before Lucentis and Avastin almost always ended up with an eye legally and funcitonally blind. It may be several months before you know the results of treatment. Often a "success" with Lucentis means that once treatment was started the eye stopped getting worse not that it returned to perfectly normal.

JCH MD