[ad_1]
A study presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Retina Specialists (ASRS) in Vancouver, BC reported that a few dozen US-based clinics offer unregulated cellular therapy for diseases such as age-related macular degeneration (AMD) through direct online marketing to consumers. These clinics most often target patients with AMD and offer intravenous or targeted injection of stem cells.
Some of these clinics charge up to $ 10,000 to patients for the procedure. Patients frequently experience adverse events – such as blindness – following the procedure.
While badyzing the studied models of these clinics, the main author Ajay E. Kuriyan, MD, MS, Adjunct Professor at the Flame Eye Institute and Strong Memorial Hospital at the Medical Center, spoke to MD Magazine ® of what can push patients to risk care, and what can be done to improve their access to good therapies.
Dr. D. Mag : What burden of eye care can cause patients to pursue a more risky "cell therapy"?
Kuriyan: So I think the most important is that there is a lot of hope. can potentially cure or reverse vision loss. And so, many of the treatments we currently have have a limit depending on the amount of damage already done to the retina. So, patients who are in a situation where our more traditional treatments do not offer additional enhancement are looking for other potential treatments.
And that's when they discover these companies through web searches. can be very convincing. I think it's sometimes difficult for patients to discern what's a legitimate study, compared to what's happening in these clinics.
And what adds another layer of complexity is that many of these companies can potentially list a study on clinicaltrials.gov, which is a repository of study. This is not an approval of the government. It's just a list of all the studies that are available.
And for some of the patients we experienced with complications from these stem cell clinics, they actually thought that they were enrolling in the study, because this clinic had a study that has been published on clinicaltrials.gov.
Due to the complexity of retinal disease and the prevalence of falsely marketed cell therapies, is there a need to improve patient education?
There is a good amount of educational material available from the American Academy of Ophthalmology for patients, as well as the National Eye Institute. And the information is available.
We know that we must certainly do our part to educate patients about their pathological process. I think the patients most likely to search for cell therapy clinics are patients who simply do not have available treatment for their disease. And I think it's a hard message to hear for patients, very understandable.
If you think that there is no option for you, then it is understandable that they are looking for other options. Unfortunately, I think there is some risk in seeking treatment options in these clinics
How important is it that less expensive biosimilars and therapies become available for these patients?
So as far as the cost of health care is concerned, it is a very widespread thing, we see that this continues to continue to increase. There is certainly a demand for biosimilars capable of producing the same results as the drugs we currently use. So we currently have a "biosimilar" with bevacizumab that is very effective and provides good results for our patients.
This has been very beneficial for treating patients, and it would be nice to have more of these in our therapeutic arsenal, especially as we look forward to more durable or extended-release types of drugs. To be able to obtain biosimilars for these would be remarkable.
Click here to subscribe to more content and updates from MD Magazine.
Related Coverage >>>
Characterization of a Dangerous and Unregulated Stem Cell Therapy for Ocular Diseases
Steven Yeh, MD: The Promise of Suprachoroidal Injections
Telemedicine screening for diabetic retinopathy could greatly benefit underserved populations
Source link
