When Catherine Howe goes outside, these days, she makes sure to protect her eyes. And for a good reason - three years ago, she suddenly went blind. Catherine Howe has wet age-related macular degeneration. One day it was black and she could not see. Her condition is caused by the abnormal growth of blood vessels under the macula, which is this tiny 1 millimetre area of the retina that enables us to read and drive. Without treatment, those blood vessels would leak fluid causing irreversible vision loss.

Catherine was fortunate enough to be enrolled in a clinical trial using a new drug called Magugen, which is injected into the affected eye every six weeks.

Dr. Patrick Ma, opthalmologist at Vancouver General Hospital says it is a drug that interacts with growth factor used for growing abnormal BV. It is a different approach than previous treatments, which used hot lasers or cold lasers in combination with drugs to seal the blood vessels.

Dr. Ma says all our previous treatments prior to photodynamic were to stop it dead but it came at a price for also losing vision. Now treatment can improve vision and that is really exciting.

Two years after beginning macugen treatment, Catherine's sight cleared.

Catherine Howe says it was big black blob, then it turned white, then it started diminishing down to a gel and one day it was clear as a bell and I could see plain.

But two months after stopping the treatment her symptoms recurred. Still she is confident the drug will work again.

As for the drug macugen we told you about earlier, it's not yet covered by pharmacare, but doctors predict it will not be long. There is a trial underway now comparing it to existing treatments. And some say the drug may end up saving health care dollars in the longterm, because it's cheaper to use than lasers.