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:
“Jamess great gift, of course, was his ability to tell a plot in shimmering detail with such delicacy of treatment and such fine aloofnessthat is, reluctance to engage in any direct grappling with what, in the play or story, had actually taken placeMthat his listeners often did not, in the end, know what had, to put it in another way, gone on.”
—James Thurber (18941961)
“The treatment of African and African American culture in our education was no different from their treatment in Tarzan movies.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“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)