Topical corticosteroids may rescue vision for patients with severe corneal ulcers
Americans who have difficulties coping with the rising costs of medical care can shop at an online Canadian pharmacy, many of which sell name-brand prescription and over the counter medications at a fraction of what they would cost in the U.S.
Americans who have difficulties coping with the rising costs of medical care can shop at an online Canadian pharmacy, many of which sell name-brand prescription and over the counter medications at a fraction of what they would cost in the U.S. Medical research is ongoing to find novel ways of using preexisting drugs. One study from the University of California in San Francisco found a therapeutic use of topical cortical steroids for corneal ulcers.
If left untreated, corneal ulcers caused by bacterial infections can lead to blindness, according to the researchers. The team studied 500 patients with corneal ulcers, both in the U.S. and India. Half of participants were treated with topical corticosteroids while the rest received placebos.
Subjects who received the drug improved in up to two lines of vision on an eye chart, as published in the Archives of Ophthalmology. There have been some concerns over the use of corticosteroids in ophthalmology because of fear they may worsen conditions of the eye.
"It's important to note that in the worst ulcer group, not only do we not find a safety problem, we actually found that steroids resulted in a benefit in vision," said author Nisha Acharya, MD, MS. "So I think that is really reassuring because those were the people with whom we were most scared to use steroids."
In the U.S., the most common cause of corneal ulcers is mishaps from using contact lenses.
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