[Hereditary retinal pathologies and AMD: new therapeutic perspectives].

This article summarizes our current knowledge on two types of retinal diseases: hereditary retinal degeneration and wet aged-related macular degeneration. Our understanding of retinal physiopathology in hereditary retinal degeneration and the successful experimental therapeutic results on animal models call for a new approach to these patients to prepare future clinical trials. Longitudinal follow-up of the functional alteration rhythm based on international standards and by expert centers is an essential prerequisite to including these patients in future clinical trials. Creating international databases that include data on follow-up using electrophysiological, psychophysical and morphological analyses would require standards defining how each of these procedures should be carried out. Furthermore, the relevance and value of the various examinations would then be evaluated in a longitudinal manner. The repeated use of these procedures in the various centers would bring to light any limitations these techniques may have for use in prospective studies. Continuous re-evaluation of these investigative techniques will therefore be necessary, a crucial factor in the preparation of multicenter clinical studies. The inclusion of patients phenotyped at different centers would require that certification procedures be set up for these centers. A great leap forward, clinical trials on new antiangiogenic approaches for the treatment of neovascular AMD are currently underway. The reasons for the switch between the neovascular and atrophic forms of AMD are as yet unknown, but these new approaches are based on the events that occur sequentially during the angiogenic response.