Treatment
Currently there is no cure for retinitis pigmentosa, but treatments are now available in some countries. The progression of the disease can be reduced by the daily intake of 15000 IU (equivalent to 4.5 mg) of vitamin A palmitate in some patients. Recent studies have shown that proper vitamin A supplementation can postpone blindness by up to 10 years (by reducing the 10% loss pa to 8.3% pa) in some patients in certain stages of the disease. When it received market approval in February 2011, the Argus II retinal implant became the first approved treatment for the disease (CE Mark demonstrating safety and performance), and it is available in Germany, France, Italy, and UK. Interim results on 30 patients long term trials were published in Ophthalmology in 2012.
Read more about this topic: Retinitis Pigmentosa
Famous quotes containing the word treatment:
“I will use treatment to help the sick according to my ability and judgment, but never with a view to injury and wrongdoing. Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course. Similarly, I will not give to a woman a pessary to cause abortion. I will keep pure and holy both my life and my art.”
—Hippocrates (c. 460–c. 370 B.C.)
“Ambivalence reaches the level of schizophrenia in our treatment of violence among the young. Parents do not encourage violence, but neither do they take up arms against the industries which encourage it. Parents hide their eyes from the books and comics, slasher films, videos and lyrics which form the texture of an adolescent culture. While all successful societies have inhibited instinct, ours encourages it. Or at least we profess ourselves powerless to interfere with it.”
—C. John Sommerville (20th century)
“Narcissist: psychoanalytic term for the person who loves himself more than his analyst; considered to be the manifestation of a dire mental disease whose successful treatment depends on the patient learning to love the analyst more and himself less.”
—Thomas Szasz (b. 1920)