Study EvAluating Genotypes While Using Lucentis 2

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a progressive disease that causes irreversible visual impairment and blindness in nearly 50 million people globally. Although geographic atrophy and neovascularization represent the advanced forms of AMD, neovascular AMD is the more aggressive form and accounts for almost 90% of blindness from this disease. It is characterized by choroidal neovascularization (CNV) which is the development of abnormal blood vessels underneath the retina. Randomized clinical trials (MARINA, ANCHOR) have conclusively demonstrated that continued intravitreal therapy with Lucentis (ranibizumab) in patients with subfoveal CNV from AMD leads to stabilization of vision in over 90% of patients and improvement in vision in at least a third of the patients and has led to the approval of Lucentis for the treatment of neovascular AMD (see investigator brochure). This study could provide insight as to the reasons that some patients do not experience vision stabilization with Lucentis, and could possibly help physicians to determine which patients are the best candidates for receiving Lucentis. This is an open-label study of 100 treatment-naïve (study eye only) AMD patients treated on-label with intravitreally administered Lucentis. Consented, enrolled subjects will receive multiple open-label intravitreal injections of 0.5 mg ranibizumab administered monthly for the first 4 months, and then as needed for a total duration of 12 months. Their blood will be genotyped and sequenced for various SNPs on VEGF and HTRA1.