Research
Eye Conditions & Care | Research
If you were diagnosed with a degenerative disease of the retina, even a decade ago, the prospect of a finding a cure would have been viewed as fairly unlikely. Medical research into cures for retinal disease has made huge progress and many therapies are being investigated, in no small part due to the efforts of patient groups around the world including Fighting Blindness Ireland and Retina International.
I must say that I myself want to avoid suggesting that cures for retinal degenerative diseases are "just around the corner" because I honestly believe that there is still quite a bit of work to be done to develop useful treatments for most of these diseases. However, I also believe that these treatments will be developed and that in my professional lifetime some people who are born with a non-functioning retina will receive a treatment that will allow them to have ambulatory vision or better. To put it another way, I have hope that this will occur. My favourite definition of the word "hope" is "a desire accompanied by confident expectation".
'One needs hope in this business whether one is the doctor or the patient and I honestly think that we have lots of realistic basis these days for "confident expectation".' Edwin Stone, MD, PHD, Non-profit Genetic Testing Laboratory, University of Iowa