Older Treatment May Be More Effective in Preserving Sight

A new drug therapy used to treat abnormal swelling in the eye — a condition called diabetic macular edema — proved less effective than traditional laser treatments in a study funded by the National Eye Institute (NEI), part of the NIH.

Between 40 percent and 45 percent of the 18 million Americans diagnosed with diabetes have vision problems, such as diabetic macular edema, which can cause blindness. The study demonstrates that laser therapy is not only more effective than corticosteroids in the long-term treatment of diabetic macular edema but also has fewer side effects, the NIH said.

Nearly 700 patients with diabetic macular edema were randomly assigned to corticosteroid or traditional laser treatment. Of the corticosteroid-treated group, 51 percent required cataract surgery compared with 13 percent of those in the laser-treated group. Additionally, 28 percent experienced substantial vision loss in the corticosteroid-treated group as compared with 19 percent in the laser-treated group. About one-third of the eyes treated with laser therapy showed substantial improvement in vision.