Researchers in the US have developed a new drug that can be delivered
directly into the eye via an eye dropper to shrink down and dissolve
cataracts - the leading cause of blindness in humans.
While the effects have yet to be tested on humans, the team from the University of California, San Diego hopes to replicate the findings in clinical trials and offer an alternative to the only treatment that’s currently available to cataract patients - painful and often prohibitively expensive surgery.
Affecting tens of millions of people worldwide, cataracts cause the lens of the eye to become progressively cloudy, and when left untreated, can lead to total blindness. This occurs when the structure of the crystalline proteins that make up the lens in our eyes deteriorates, causing the damaged or disorganized proteins to clump and form a milky blue or brown layer. While cataracts cannot spread from one eye to the other, they can occur independently in both eyes.
The new drug is based on a naturally-occurring steroid called lanosterol. The idea to test the effectiveness of lanosterol on cataracts came to the researchers when they became aware of two children in China who had inherited a congenital form of cataract, which had never affected their parents. The researchers discovered that these siblings shared a mutation that stopped the production of lanosterol, which their parents lacked.
So, if the parents were producing lanosterol and didn’t get cataracts, but their children weren’t producing lanosterol and did get cataracts, the researchers proposed that the steroid might halt the defective crystalline proteins from clumping together and forming cataracts in the non-congenital form of the disease .
US researchers found that the chemical lanosterol, the main molecule in steroids, can break up the proteins that cloud the lens.
They tested lanosterol eye drops on elderly dogs and rabbits and found that within six weeks, vision had improved.
Dr Kang Zhang, an eye specialist from the University of California, hopes to start the first clinical trials on humans in the next one to two years.
He believes that the body naturally produces lanosterol when we are younger but but that as we get older, not enough is produced to prevent cataracts from developing.
There is currently no medications to prevent or reverse cataracts. The only treatment is surgery, which can lead to complications. Many patients left unable to read or drive are forced to wait until their sight deteriorates even further to qualify for surgery in some areas
Now these drops, which would be used twice a day, could soon be available for cataracts patients and be widely available within five years.
Cataract-
While the effects have yet to be tested on humans, the team from the University of California, San Diego hopes to replicate the findings in clinical trials and offer an alternative to the only treatment that’s currently available to cataract patients - painful and often prohibitively expensive surgery.
Affecting tens of millions of people worldwide, cataracts cause the lens of the eye to become progressively cloudy, and when left untreated, can lead to total blindness. This occurs when the structure of the crystalline proteins that make up the lens in our eyes deteriorates, causing the damaged or disorganized proteins to clump and form a milky blue or brown layer. While cataracts cannot spread from one eye to the other, they can occur independently in both eyes.
The new drug is based on a naturally-occurring steroid called lanosterol. The idea to test the effectiveness of lanosterol on cataracts came to the researchers when they became aware of two children in China who had inherited a congenital form of cataract, which had never affected their parents. The researchers discovered that these siblings shared a mutation that stopped the production of lanosterol, which their parents lacked.
So, if the parents were producing lanosterol and didn’t get cataracts, but their children weren’t producing lanosterol and did get cataracts, the researchers proposed that the steroid might halt the defective crystalline proteins from clumping together and forming cataracts in the non-congenital form of the disease .
US researchers found that the chemical lanosterol, the main molecule in steroids, can break up the proteins that cloud the lens.
They tested lanosterol eye drops on elderly dogs and rabbits and found that within six weeks, vision had improved.
Dr Kang Zhang, an eye specialist from the University of California, hopes to start the first clinical trials on humans in the next one to two years.
He believes that the body naturally produces lanosterol when we are younger but but that as we get older, not enough is produced to prevent cataracts from developing.
There is currently no medications to prevent or reverse cataracts. The only treatment is surgery, which can lead to complications. Many patients left unable to read or drive are forced to wait until their sight deteriorates even further to qualify for surgery in some areas
Now these drops, which would be used twice a day, could soon be available for cataracts patients and be widely available within five years.
Cataract-
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