Cataract is one of the most common forms of visual impairment, and unfortunately, surgery is the only real treatment. But a new drug treatment may change this situation. It is reported that it has improved the vision of most of the mice tested in the experiment.
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Cataracts are clumps of proteins that form on the lens of the eye, presenting as a cloudy area that may damage vision. They usually develop slowly with age, and if they become serious enough, they can only be treated by surgically removing the lens and replacing it with a transparent intraocular lens.
Drug treatment for cataract has been tested in the past, but the results are different. In tests on dogs with cataracts, a group of compounds called oxidized cholesterol - including a compound called lanosterol - has successfully reduced protein caking. However, other studies failed to reproduce this result.
In the new study, the researchers used a different type of oxidized cholesterol, vp1-001. They used the drug topically in one eye of 26 mice with cataract, and nine mice served as a control group without treatment.
The improvement in the refractive index of the mice's eyes, measured by the group's ability to receive treatment, was 61%. Eye opacity also decreased in 46% of mice.
"This study shows the positive effect of a compound that has been proposed as an anti cataract drug, but has never been tested in the optics of the lens before," said Professor Barbara pierscionek, the first author of the study, "This is the first such study in the world. It shows that the eyes with the same type of cataract treated with this compound have significant optical differences and improvements compared with untreated eyes."
However, the drug may not be a complete panacea for cataract. Some types of cataracts did not respond as expected, which may be the reason for the failure of previous studies.
"Although some types of cataracts have improved, not all cataracts, suggesting that this may be a treatment for specific cataracts. This means that it may be necessary to distinguish between types of cataracts when developing anti cataract drugs. This is an important step towards treating this extremely common disease with drugs rather than surgery," pierscionek said
Like animal research, researchers still have a lot of work to do, including checking whether the same mechanism works in humans.