Towards a rational approach to combination therapy for neovascular age-related macular degeneration
- Correspondence to: Dr Jorge G Arroyo Division of Ophthalmology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Shapiro 5th Floor, 330 Brookline Avenue, Boston, MA 02215, USA;jarroyo{at}bidmc.harvard.edu
Multifactorial Immunohistochemical Analysis of Choroidal Neovascularisation
Neovascularisation is controlled by the temporal and spatial distribution of agonising and antagonising membrane-bound and diffusible substances.1 In 1948, Michaelson2 hypothesised that a diffusible, hypoxia-induced, angiogenic “factor X” was responsible for iris and retinal neovascularisation associated with ischaemic retinopathies. Decades later, in 1983, a candidate glycoprotein was partially characterised by Dvorak et al3 and initially termed vascular permeability factor. Further work by Ferrara and Henzel4 expanded our understanding of this endothelial cell-specific glycoprotein, leading to its current name, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). Since then, researchers have carried out studies on both animals and humans that strongly suggest that the diffusible, hypoxia-induced, endothelial cell-specific factor VEGF5–7 most probably …
