الفهرس 
IntroductionOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Age-related macular degeneration is a disease leading to severe visual loss and legal blindness in the elderly population and is characterised by the following: 1. Early characteristics: • Drusen (Drusen are discrete white-yellow spots containing abnormal extracellular lipoprotein deposits that accumulate between the RPE basal lamina and the inner collagenous layer of the Bruch’s membrane). • Hyperpigmentation of the RPE. • Sharply demarcated areas of RPE depigmentation. 2. Late characteristics: • Geographic atrophy of the RPE with visible underlying choroidal vessels. • Pigment epithelial detachment (PED) with or without neurosensory detachment. • Subretinal or sub-RPE neovascularization. • Fibroglial scar tissue, haemorrhage and exudates. Its pathogenesis, likely multifactorial, involving a complex interaction of metabolic, functional, genetic and environmental factors, remains poorly understood. For these reasons currently used therapeutic approaches are insufficiently effective. Although major abnormalities are seen in four functionally interrelated tissues (photoreceptors, retinal pigment epithelium , Bruch’s membrane and choriocapillaries), the impairment of RPE cell functions is an early and crucial event in the molecular pathways leading to clinically relevant AMD changes. RPE progressively degenerate, which results in a progressive irreversible degeneration of photoreceptors. Four processes: lipofuscinogenesis, drusogenesis, inflammation and neovascularization, specifically contribute to the development of two forms of AMD, the dry form (non-exudative; geographic atrophy) and the wet form (exudative, neovascular).