Abstract:

Retinal neuronal cell death is caused in many incurable eye diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa (RP) and glau-coma, which are leading causes of adult blindness. In RP, progressive loss of photoreceptor cells leads to visual dis-turbance. No established treatments are available to date for this condition, although potential treatments, includ-ing regenerative medicine, gene therapy, and neurotropic factor therapy are being investigated. In glaucoma, retinal ganglion cell death leads to visual disturbance. Although intraocular pressure reduction is the only established treatment to slow the loss of visual function in glaucoma, there are a fair number of cases where visual impairment progresses despite intraocular pressure being maintained within the normal range. Therapeutic strategies to pre-vent neuronal cell death are being pursued.