Robot radiotherapy could improve treatments for wet age-related macular degeneration
Key Takeaways
- Researchers have developed a robot radiotherapy system that can deliver a precise, minimally invasive dose of radiation to the eyes of patients with wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD).
- A landmark trial showed that using the robot to administer radiation, followed by standard eye injection treatment, significantly reduced the need for future eye injections to control the disease.
Wet AMD is a debilitating eye disease in which abnormal new blood vessels grow into the macula, a part of the light sensing-layer of cells inside the back of the eyeball that is responsible for detailed central vision. The vessels then start to leak blood and fluid, typically causing a rapid, permanent, and severe loss of sight.
Wet AMD is currently treated with regular injections of medication into the eye. Initially, treatment substantially improves a patient’s vision. But because the injections don’t cure the disease, fluid will eventually start to build up again in the macula, and patients will require long-term, repeated injections. Most people require an injection around every 1-3 months.
Researchers from King’s College London, with doctors at King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, have successfully used a new robot system to improve treatment for wet AMD. The custom-built robot was used to administer a one-off, minimally invasive dose of radiation, followed by patients’ routine treatment with injections into their eye. In the landmark trial, published in The Lancet, it was found that patients then needed fewer injections to effectively control the disease, potentially saving around 1.8 million injections per year around the world.
The new treatment can be targeted far better than existing methods, aiming three beams of highly focused radiation into the diseased eye. The study lead and first author on the paper, Professor Timothy Jackson, said, “Research has previously tried to find a better way to target radiotherapy to the macula, such as by repurposing devices used to treat brain tumours. But so far nothing has been sufficiently precise to target macular disease that may be less than 1 mm across. With this purpose-built robotic system, we can be incredibly precise, using overlapping beams of radiation to treat a very small lesion in the back of the eye.”
Jackson added, “By better stabilising the disease and reducing its activity, the new treatment could reduce the number of injections people need by about a quarter. Hopefully, this discovery will reduce the burden of treatment that patients have to endure.”
Edited by Miriam Kaplan, PhD
Source: King’s College London, ScienceDaily, June 12, 2024; see source article