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Thanks to funding from the eye sight charity Fight For Sight, a new trial is to begin into the condition choroideremia, a disease which leads to blindness. It is a form of gene therapy, something that has never been used before in this field. Prior to this treatment, although in its infancy, there is no recognised cure for the rare degenerative condition.
Since 1965, Fight for Sight has raised funds to support medical research into a wide-range of eye conditions. These include macular degeneration, glaucoma, cataract, diabetic retinopathy as well as the causes of childhood blindness. Fight for Sight also funds research into a large number of rare eye diseases. The charity is the largest in the UK dedicated to funding eye research.
Choroideremia is an X-linked recessive retinal degenerative disease that leads to the degeneration of the choriocapillaris, the retinal pigment epithelium, and the photoreceptor of the eye. It is a rare inherited disorder that causes progressive loss of vision due to degeneration of the choroid and retina. It occurs almost exclusively in males. As the disease progresses, there is loss of vision, frequently starting as an irregular ring that gradually expands both in toward central vision and out toward the extreme periphery.
The trial will focus on the hope of stopping the degeneration in the eye that this condition causes. The treatment will revolve around the eye itself being injected with a gene carrying virus, which researchers believe will infect the eyes photoreceptors and in turn replace the missing gene. Expectations are that the tests should show signs of halting the eyes degeneration within the space of 2 years.