2049 Photobiomodulation as a New Treatment for Dry Age Related Macular Degeneration. Results from the Toronto and Oak Ridge Photobimodulation Study in AMD (TORPA)

A Double-Masked, Randomized, Sham-Controlled, Single-Center Study With Photobiomodulation for the Treatment of Dry Age-Related Macular Degeneration

“…The results from the study illustrate positive benefits after PBM treatment in both clinical and anatomical outcomes in subjects with dry AMD. These findings corroborate and extend previous reports using the same three wavelengths as delivered in the Valeda Light Delivery System, 23,24 demonstrating clinical improvement in patients with dry AMD after PBM therapy.…”

“…20 Most recently, the Toronto and Oak Ridge PBM Studies for Dry Age-Related Macular Degeneration (TORPA I and II) presented evidence for clinical (improvements in best-corrected visual acuity [BCVA] and contrast sensitivity [CS]) and anatomical (reductions in drusen volume) benefits after PBM in patients with dry AMD. 23,24 These positive clinical findings coupled with the known mitochondrial-based mode of action of PBM and the underlying pathology associated with AMD highly suggest that PBM treatment could have a therapeutic role in dry AMD, a condition that is characterized by mitochondrial dysfunction, oxidative stress, and inflammation within the RPE cell layer.…”

Turning On Lights to Stop Neurodegeneration: The Potential of Near Infrared Light Therapy in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Disease

“…For example, NIr has been reported beneficial in animal models of retinal disease (Eells et al, 2004 ; Natoli et al, 2010 , 2013 ; Albarracin et al, 2013 ; Begum et al, 2013 ; Gkotsi et al, 2014 ), traumatic brain (Ando et al, 2011 ; Oron et al, 2012 ; Quirk et al, 2012a ; Xuan et al, 2013 , 2014 , 2015 ) and optic nerve (Fitzgerald et al, 2010 ) injury, experimentally-induced stroke (Lapchak et al, 2004 ; DeTaboada et al, 2006 ; Oron et al, 2006 ), familial amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Moges et al, 2009 ), multiple sclerosis (Muili et al, 2012 ), Parkinson's disease (Liang et al, 2008 ; Whelan et al, 2008 ; Ying et al, 2008 ; Shaw et al, 2010 ; Peoples et al, 2012 ; Moro et al, 2013 , 2014 ; Purushothuman et al, 2013 ; Vos et al, 2013 ; Johnstone et al, 2014a , b ; Darlot et al, 2015 ; El Massri et al, 2015 ; Reinhart et al, 2015a , b ) and Alzheimer's disease (Michalikova et al, 2008 ; DeTaboada et al, 2011 ; Grillo et al, 2013 ; Purushothuman et al, 2014 , 2015 ). In humans, NIr therapy has been reported to improve executive, cognitive, and emotional functions (Barrett and Gonzalez-Lima, 2013 ; Blanco et al, 2015 ), together with performance in a range of clinical tests after ischaemic stroke (Lampl et al, 2007 ; Lapchak, 2010 ), brain trauma (Naeser et al, 2011 , 2014 ), depression (Schiffer et al, 2009 ) and in age-related macular degeneration (Merry et al, 2012 ). The fact that NIr therapy has been reported to be effective in so many different models of disease and in a range of neural systems suggests that it is not a targeted therapy, but instead, acts to mitigate ubiquitous processes relating to cell damage and death.…”

The Present and Future of Mitochondrial-Based Therapeutics for Eye Disease

“…44 The Toronto and Oak Ridge PBM Study for Dry AMD (TORPA I; NCT00940407) study showed that PBM delivered by the Valeda Light Delivery System (LumiThera, Inc, Poulsbo, WA, USA) was able to provide immediate functional improvements in terms of BCVA and contrast sensitivity. 45 In addition, TORPA II proved that the benefits provided by PBM are documentable anatomically on spectral domain optical coherence tomography with reduction in drusen volume without the development of GA. Patients with better baseline BCVA benefited the most from PBM treatment.…”