Paradigm of Susceptibility Genes in AMD and PCV

Abstract

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a neurodegenerative disease and a cause of progressive blindness effecting millions of elderly people (over age of 50 years) worldwide. It is a complex disease with differing epidemiology, clinical features, pathogenesis, treatment, and genetics in Europeans and Asians. Specifically, polypoidal choroidal vasculopathy (PCV), a subtype of neovascular AMD, is more common in Asians compared to Western counterparts and exhibits different characteristics in all of these features.Since the first genome-wide association study (GWAS) in 2005, which led to the discovery of the complement factor H (CFH) gene as a major risk factor in AMD, a number of studies ha..