No more eye injections with an implantable pump!

[RandyM]

Coming soon! No more eye injections! My retinal specialist told me a Mini Drug Pump for Ophthalmic Use is going to be approved for Lucentis. (Like an insulin pump device) I'm not sure if Eylea will be offered as well. He said it should be available in a year or so. Has anyone else heard of this? I am so excited to learn of this! ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...

[Koalajane]

That is very interesting. I wonder how long it will take to be offered on the NHS

[fed13 in reply to Koalajane]

Forever...….but hopefully as insulin pumps are on NHS so will ours be.

[Tetrazzini]

Sounds great - almost too good to be true!!

[ironbrain]

I was told on my last visit that the drops might be available post-trials in two or three years.

[RandyM in reply to ironbrain]

Drops would be much better than implants. I will research that method. Thanks for the info!

[123charl]

Good morning

Its fantastic news that new treatments are being promoted and how far we have come in just the last ten years. I had a steroid implant in y eye which will last for up to 3 years. Its been great and is now nearly 12 months since I had it done.

I can't find anyone else who has had this done but, for me I would prefer this to a pump.You forget it is even there and whilst there is no improvement in vision it is stable and no further deterioration in the last 10 months.

If you are on monthly eye injections and find it stressful- consider asking your consultant if this would be available to you.

It will be nice wen they are able to give us eye transplants !!

[Hidden in reply to 123charl]

My consultant said the steroid implants are not a suitable treatment for wetmd ( I have the shorter term implant for brvo mac oedema). I've not been offered the 3 yr one - what condition do you have 123charl?

[RP1944]

This will be a wonderful improvement, hopefully we do not have to wait too many years before we are offered this treatment instead of injections.

Thanks for posting this information.

[StokeySue]

Devices such as pumps tend to take a long time to trickle through, and I suspect there will be contraindications, I'd guess glaucoma or raised intraocular pressure might prevent their use, but that is merely an educated *guess*

I'm currently more excited by the prospect of drops, which will be nicer for us all, and require no surgery or procedures such as injection, which saves the NHS a lot of money and could potentially even clear a lot of the backlog in the system as can be administered by any nurse in the clinic.

There's an update on drops due at the Macular Society Conference in September, so it will be interesting to see how they are getting on,