Research progress of anti-VEGF for the therapy in wet age-related macular degeneration

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the primary cause of the blindness among the population aged more than 50 years old.The prevalence of AMD increases with age growing.Wet AMD is the main cause of the visual impairment in over 90% of AMD patients, which is characterized by formation of choroidal neovascularization.It takes the hypersecretion of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) as a mechanism, leading to vision loss and blindness finally.Targeted anti-VEGF therapy for angiogensis, like ranibizumab and aflibercept can reduce the rate of blindness greatly in AMD patients.It has become the front-line therapy in clinical.However, there still exist some problems.Some patients do not respond to the treatment or their eyesight cannot sustain after long-term treatment.In addition, repeated injection increases the risk of complications and economic burden.In order to further increase their quality of life and improve long-term outcome in patients with wet AMD, a steady flow of new therapy has emerged, such as function towards the same or different targets of antiangiogenesis to enhance the effect by combination therapy, improving or simplifying the mode of administration, inhibiting VEGFR tyrosine protein kinase, etc.This paper reviewed the research progress of anti-VEGF for the therapy in wet AMD.

Anti-vascular endothelial growth factor therapy; Targeted therapy; Wet age-related macular degeneration