Finding Better Treatments for AIDS-Related Eye Disease

Two out of every three individuals with AIDS demonstrate some eye condition related to their illness. Many of these will contract a condition called cytomegalovirus (CMV) retinitis, the leading cause of blindness in people with AIDS.

CMV retinitis is the most common opportunistic infection of the eye in patients with AIDS and is the most common complication of CMV disease. Without treatment, CMV damages the light-catching retina on the back wall of the eye and can lead to blindness.

In 1994, Eye Center researchers were the first to publish a study on the ganciclovir eye implant, a tiny drug pellet inserted into the eye, to treat CMV retinitis. A study published by Emory in the New England Journal of Medicine in April 1999 found that simultaneously giving AIDS patients the antiviral ganciclovir via pill as well as in a tiny pellet implanted in the eye delays or prevents complications of CMV. Oral ganciclovir used in conjunction with an eye implant delays the onset of CMV retinitis and reduces the incidence of Kaposi's sarcoma, another opportunistic disease associated with AIDS. The study also found that patients receiving the combined therapy were hospitalized less and spent fewer days in the hospital than participants who received the eye implant plus the placebo or who received intravenous ganciclovir (which requires rigorous, hours-long daily infusions).

лл back to Emory Eye Center Services