fbpx

A New Drug Approved for Diabetic Macular Degeneration

by | Nov 9, 2022 | Eyecare Tips, Eyesight Conditions, News | 38 comments

a new drug approved

Good news for diabetics! A new drug approved Beovu (brolucizumab) by the FDA to treat diabetic macular edema in people with type 1 or type 2 diabetes. This medication may be able to protect you or someone you care about from diabetes-related vision loss.

One of the most common diabetes-related eye complications and causes of vision loss is diabetic macular edema (DME). DME affects approximately 12% of people with type 1 diabetes and 28% of people with type 2 diabetes. This condition is also one of the leading causes of blindness and vision loss in the world.

When blood vessels in the eyes become damaged, fluid begins to leak into the macula, a part of the retina responsible for a person’s most vivid, central vision. This buildup is frequently caused by the formation of new small blood vessels in the macula, which is triggered by the hormone VEGF. Beovu is a VEGF inhibitor, a type of medication that prevents the formation of new blood vessels in the macula and thus helps to prevent further fluid buildup.

Beovu was approved by the FDA in 2019 for another diabetes-related eye condition called age-related macular degeneration (AMD), which is another leading cause of blindness, prior to its new indication as a treatment for DME. In March 2022, the drug was also approved for DME in Europe.

Beovu’s approval for DME follows positive results from two phase 3 clinical trials, KESTREL and KITE. In these trials, Beovu was compared to Eylea, a similar eye medication that is currently the standard treatment for DME. When compared to the impact of Eylea, people taking Beovu had similar improvements in visual acuity (ability to distinguish shapes and objects) and reductions in fluid buildup.

Furthermore, while both drugs provided comparable overall improvements in vision, Beovu requires fewer doses to achieve the same effect. Both Beovu and Eylea are administered via eyeball injection, which necessitates a trip to the clinic. Participants in the KESTREL and KITE studies who received Eylea received one injection per month for the first five months, followed by injections every eight weeks. In comparison, Beovu participants received five injections six weeks apart, followed by injections every 12 weeks. While the frequency of this treatment varied depending on the needs of the individual, in both studies, more than half of Beovu participants maintained the 12-week intervals throughout the two-year study.

Following the approval of the new drug Vabysmo in February 2022, the approval of Beovu as a treatment for DME represents another advancement in the treatment options for diabetes-related eye diseases. Fewer injections could significantly reduce the burden of receiving eye treatments required to protect against vision loss. For people with DME, this means fewer clinic visits, fewer eye injections, and potentially lower treatment costs due to the need for fewer doses.

For more helpful eye care and vision care tips, please visit our main blog page.

Source: diatribe.org

Image by thatbaldguy from Pixabay

38 Comments

  9. Michaelfuh
    Michaelfuh on June 11, 2025 at 8:40 pm

    There’s a ‘ghost hurricane’ in the forecast. It could help predict a real one
    смотреть гей порно
    A scary-looking weather forecast showing a hurricane hitting the Gulf Coast in the second half of June swirled around social media this week—but don’t panic.

    It’s the season’s first “ghost hurricane.”

    Similar hype plays out every hurricane season, especially at the beginning: A cherry-picked, worst-case-scenario model run goes viral, but more often than not, will never come to fruition.

    Unofficially dubbed “ghost storms” or “ghost hurricanes,” these tropical systems regularly appear in weather models — computer simulations that help meteorologists forecast future conditions — but never seem to manifest in real life.

    The model responsible this week was the Global Forecast System, also known as the GFS or American model, run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It’s one of many used by forecasters around the world.

    All models have known biases or “quirks” where they tend to overpredict or underpredict certain things. The GFS is known to overpredict tropical storms and hurricanes in longer-term forecasts that look more than a week into the future, which leads to these false alarms. The GFS isn’t alone in this — all models struggle to accurately predict tropical activity that far in advance — but it is notorious for doing so.

    For example, the GFS could spit out a prediction for a US hurricane landfall about 10 days from now, only to have that chance completely disappear as the forecast date draws closer. This can occur at any time of the year, but is most frequent during hurricane season — June through November.

    It’s exactly what’s been happening over the past week as forecasters keep an eye out for the first storm of the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season.
    Why so many ghosts?
    No weather forecast model is designed in the exact same way as another, and that’s why each can generate different results with similar data.

    The reason the GFS has more false alarms when looking more than a week out than similar models – like Europe’s ECMWF, Canada’s CMC or the United Kingdom’s UKM – is because that’s exactly what it’s programmed to do, according to Alicia Bentley, the global verification project lead of NOAA’s Environmental Modeling Center.

    The GFS was built with a “weak parameterized cumulus convection scheme,” according to Bentley. In plain language, that means when the GFS thinks there could be thunderstorms developing in an area where tropical systems are possible – over the oceans – it’s more likely to jump to the conclusion that something tropical will develop than to ignore it.

    Other models aren’t built to be quite as sensitive to this phenomenon, and so they don’t show a tropical system until they’re more confident the right conditions are in place, which usually happens when the forecast gets closer in time.

    The western Caribbean Sea is one of the GFS’ favorite places to predict a ghost storm. That’s because of the Central American gyre: a large, disorganized area of showers and thunderstorms that rotates over the region and its surrounding water.

  18. LhaneChesy
    LhaneChesy on June 13, 2025 at 8:48 pm

    This excellent website certainly has all the information and facts I needed about this subject and didn’t know who to ask.
    hafilat top up

  32. FreddieTeern
    FreddieTeern on June 14, 2025 at 9:33 am

    Scientists mapped what happens if a crucial system of ocean currents collapses. The weather impact would be extreme
    pin up aviator
    The collapse of a crucial network of Atlantic Ocean currents could push parts of the world into a deep freeze, with winter temperatures plunging to around minus 55 degrees Fahrenheit in some cities, bringing “profound climate and societal impacts,” according to a new study.

    There is increasing concern about the future of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation — known as the AMOC — a system of currents that works like a giant conveyor belt, pulling warm water from the Southern Hemisphere and tropics to the Northern Hemisphere, where it cools, sinks and flows back south.

    Multiple studies suggest the AMOC is weakening with some projecting it could even collapse this century as global warming disrupts the balance of heat and salinity that keeps it moving. This would usher in huge global weather and climate shifts — including plunging temperatures in Europe, which relies on the AMOC for its mild climate.

    What’s less clear, however, is how these impacts will unfold in a world heated up by humans burning fossil fuels.

    “What if the AMOC collapses and we have climate change? Does the cooling win or does the warming win?” asked Rene van Westen, a marine and atmospheric researcher at Utrecht University in the Netherlands and co-author of the paper published Wednesday in the Geophysical Research Letters journal.

    This new study is the first to use a modern, complex climate model to answer the question, he told CNN.
    The researchers looked at a scenario where the AMOC weakens by 80% and the Earth is around 2 degrees Celsius warmer than the period before humans began burning large amounts of fossil fuels. The planet is currently at 1.2 degrees of warming.

    They focused on what would happen as the climate stabilized post-collapse, multiple decades into the future.

    Even in this hotter world, they found “substantial cooling” over Europe with sharp drops in average winter temperatures and more intense cold extremes — a very different picture than the United States, where the study found temperatures would continue to increase even with an AMOC collapse.

    Sea ice would spread southward as far as Scandinavia, parts of the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, the research found. This would have a huge impact on cold extremes as the white surface of the ice reflects the sun’s energy back into space, amplifying cooling.

    The scientists have created an interactive map to visualize the impacts of an AMOC collapse across the globe.

  35. JamesFrigh
    JamesFrigh on June 14, 2025 at 11:21 pm

    Tree-covered mountains rise behind a pile of trash, children run through the orange haze of a dust storm, and a billboard standing on parched earth indicates where the seashore used to be before desertification took hold. These striking images, exhibited as part of the Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Summit, show the devastating effects of climate change.
    kraken darknet
    The summit, held at the University of Oxford in the UK and supported by UN Human Rights (OHCHR), aims to reframe climate change as a human rights crisis and spotlight climate solutions. It works with everyone from policymakers to artists to get the message across.

    “Photographers document the human rights impacts of climate change, helping to inform the public and hold governments and businesses accountable,” said Volker Turk, UN High Commissioner for the OHCHR, via email. “The Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Summit shows the power of collective action — uniting storytellers, scientists, indigenous leaders, and others to advance climate solutions rooted in human rights.”

    Coinciding with World Environment Day on June 5, the exhibition — titled “Photography 4 Humanity: A Lens on Climate Justice” — features the work of 31 photographers from across the globe, all documenting the effects of global warming and environmental pollution on their own communities.

    Climate change disproportionately affects vulnerable populations around the world. Despite emitting far fewer greenhouse gases, low-income nations are suffering the most from extreme weather events and have fewer resources to adapt or recover.
    Photographs at the exhibition show the effects of desertification, flooding and plastic pollution. A black and white image shows the ruins of a house in West Bengal, India, sloping towards the Ganges River, with the owner sitting alongside. Riverbank erosion is degrading the environment and displacing communities in the area. Photographer Masood Sarwer said in a press release that the photo depicts the “slow violence” of climate change: “These are not sudden disasters, but slow-moving, relentless ones — shaping a new category of environmental refugees.”

    Another photo, taken by Aung Chan Thar, shows children fishing for trash in Inle Lake, Myanmar. The lake was once a pristine natural wonder but now faces the growing threat of plastic pollution. “This image of children cleaning the water symbolizes the importance of education and collective action in preserving our environment for a sustainable future,” he said.

    Organizers hope that the exhibition will help to humanize the climate crisis. “Our mission is to inspire new perspectives through photography,” said Pauline Benthede, global vice president of artistic direction and exhibitions at Fotografiska, the museum of photography, art and culture that is curating the exhibition at the summit. “It draws attention to the human rights issue at the heart of global warming, which affects both the world’s landscapes and the people that live within them.”

    “Photography is the most influential and inclusive art form of our times and has the power to foster understanding and inspire action,” she added.

  36. MarvinFibia
    MarvinFibia on June 15, 2025 at 1:53 am

    Tree-covered mountains rise behind a pile of trash, children run through the orange haze of a dust storm, and a billboard standing on parched earth indicates where the seashore used to be before desertification took hold. These striking images, exhibited as part of the Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Summit, show the devastating effects of climate change.
    кракен вход
    The summit, held at the University of Oxford in the UK and supported by UN Human Rights (OHCHR), aims to reframe climate change as a human rights crisis and spotlight climate solutions. It works with everyone from policymakers to artists to get the message across.

    “Photographers document the human rights impacts of climate change, helping to inform the public and hold governments and businesses accountable,” said Volker Turk, UN High Commissioner for the OHCHR, via email. “The Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Summit shows the power of collective action — uniting storytellers, scientists, indigenous leaders, and others to advance climate solutions rooted in human rights.”

    Coinciding with World Environment Day on June 5, the exhibition — titled “Photography 4 Humanity: A Lens on Climate Justice” — features the work of 31 photographers from across the globe, all documenting the effects of global warming and environmental pollution on their own communities.

    Climate change disproportionately affects vulnerable populations around the world. Despite emitting far fewer greenhouse gases, low-income nations are suffering the most from extreme weather events and have fewer resources to adapt or recover.
    Photographs at the exhibition show the effects of desertification, flooding and plastic pollution. A black and white image shows the ruins of a house in West Bengal, India, sloping towards the Ganges River, with the owner sitting alongside. Riverbank erosion is degrading the environment and displacing communities in the area. Photographer Masood Sarwer said in a press release that the photo depicts the “slow violence” of climate change: “These are not sudden disasters, but slow-moving, relentless ones — shaping a new category of environmental refugees.”

    Another photo, taken by Aung Chan Thar, shows children fishing for trash in Inle Lake, Myanmar. The lake was once a pristine natural wonder but now faces the growing threat of plastic pollution. “This image of children cleaning the water symbolizes the importance of education and collective action in preserving our environment for a sustainable future,” he said.

    Organizers hope that the exhibition will help to humanize the climate crisis. “Our mission is to inspire new perspectives through photography,” said Pauline Benthede, global vice president of artistic direction and exhibitions at Fotografiska, the museum of photography, art and culture that is curating the exhibition at the summit. “It draws attention to the human rights issue at the heart of global warming, which affects both the world’s landscapes and the people that live within them.”

    “Photography is the most influential and inclusive art form of our times and has the power to foster understanding and inspire action,” she added.

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *