Eye researcher wins award

Dedication to warding off a common form of blindness has earned a Melbourne ophthalmologist the 2002 Amgen Medical Researcher Award.

The head of the Centre for Eye Research Australia's macular research unit, Dr Robyn Guymer, has begun a study looking at the extent to which cholesterol-lowering drugs could delay age-related macular degeneration (AMD).

Guymer said decades of research around the world had been trying to link cardiovascular disease with AMD, a condition in which fatty material builds up in the membrane of the retina and cuts off nutrient supply to sensory cells needed for central vision.

She said a certain form of cholesterol pathway gene, known as the E2 allele and which occurred in about 8 per cent of people, had been implicated as giving a higher risk of the degenerative eye disease - although the results were not yet conclusive.

"All I have done is put together the fact there is a gene with my own findings from a small epidemiological study of a small group of people, that if they are on cholesterol lowering medication their degeneration tends to be less," Guymer explained.

She pointed out that people with the E2 allele did not always suffer AMD or high cholesterol, but simply had a greater risk of developing the conditions.

Also, people who suffered high cholesterol levels did not necessarily go on to develop AMD.

In her randomised study, patients known to be at risk of AMD would be given either cholesterol-lowering statins or a placebo over three years and would have their levels of degeneration measured.

"It is possible to define people at risk of vision loss, but the actual disease is very poorly treated," Guymer said.

"We'd hope that until better treatments or a cure is found, we could delay the progression of the disease.

"If we could delay the onset of blindness by 10 to 20 years that would improve the quality of life for these patients."

She said that if the epidemiological evidence held true in the clinical trial, statins could ultimately be used to treat people with the genetic variation or with a family history of AMD, to prevent the disease from developing.

Guymer said she was drawn to ophthalmology by the belief that it would be easier to understand something as small as the eye, as opposed to being a physician and having to understand the whole body.

"It's also a very important area and obviously a very crucial organ and it is good to be a part of that."

AMD is the most common cause of legal blindness in Western societies. In Australia, 15 per cent of people aged over 50 years and two in three people over 90 suffer from the condition.

Guymer's award, presented today, is part of the Australian Society for Medical Research's Medical Research Week, which runs until June 8.