Senile macular degeneration is a leading cause of blindness in the United States and presumed ocular histoplasmosis syndrome, while less common, is an important cause of blindness. Although various treatments have been proposed for each of these conditions, including steroids and histoplasmin desensitization for ocular histoplasmosis and photocoagultion of neovascular membranes for both conditions, no treatment has been shown to be of benefit for either condition in a controlled randomized trial with a sufficient number of patients. The failure of several studies to detect statistically significant differences in eyes treated with argon laser photocoagulation compared to eyes not treated makes it mandatory to conduct a prospective trial with randomization of eyes eligible for photocoagulation in order to define the role of this therapeutic modality in both histoplasmic maculopathy and senile macula degeneration.
| Jefferys, Joan L; Alexander, Judith; Hiner, Cheryl J et al. (2008) Reproducibility of gradings of retinal photographs in eyes with subfoveal choroidal neovascularization and age-related macular degeneration in the macular photocoagulation study. Ophthalmic Epidemiol 15:191-201 |
