Therapeutic approaches with intravitreal injections in geographic atrophy secondary to age-related macular degeneration: current drugs and potential molecules
The present review focuses on recent clinical trials that analyze the efficacy of
intravitreal therapeutic agents for the treatment of dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD),
such as neuroprotective drugs, and complement inhibitors, also called immunomodulatory or
anti-inflammatory agents. A systematic literature search was performed to identify randomized
controlled trials published prior to January 2019. Patients affected by dry AMD treated with
intravitreal therapeutic agents were included. Changes in the correct visual acuity and reduction in
geographic atrophy progression were evaluated. Several new drugs have shown promising results,
including those targeting the complement cascade and neuroprotective agents. The potential action
of the two groups of drugs is to block complement cascade upregulation of immunomodulating
agents, and to prevent the degeneration and apoptosis of ganglion cells for the neuroprotectors,
respectively. Our analysis indicates that finding treatments for dry AMD will require continued
collaboration among researchers to identify additional molecular targets and to fully interrogate the
utility of pluripotent stem cells for personalized therapy.