Treatment

Treating wet AMD

Photo of a person holding their glasses, sat in a chair at the opticians. They are speaking to an optician who has an open folder and is explaining something.

Wet AMD cannot yet be cured, but treatment can effectively prevent any further deterioration of your vision.

Without treatment, about 80% to 90% of people with wet AMD will eventually have vision loss severe enough that they meet the criteria for legal blindness.¹

The main treatment for wet AMD is using anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (anti-VEGF), a biologic medicine.

Biologic medicines refer to medicines made from a biological source, such as living cells and organisms. “Biosimilars” is another term that may be used when talking about biologics. Biosimilars are biological medicines which are highly similar to the original biologic reference medicine in terms of quality, safety and efficacy. This means there is no clinically meaningful difference to the original biologic medicine.

These biologic medications are given as an injection into your eye, which is called an intravitreal injection. An antiseptic solution will be used to clean your eye, and anaesthetic drops will be used to numb it. You will be asked to look in one direction, and the injection is given in the opposite corner, so you are unlikely to see the needle, and it only takes a few seconds. The majority of patients will find this procedure painless, but some people may develop pain or discomfort. In some cases, you may develop an allergic reaction, but this is rare.³

Alternative treatments

In some circumstances, laser eye treatment is given, which works by preventing the growth of new blood vessels and preventing damaged vessels from leaking.^3,4

These include:⁴

laser photocoagulation
photodynamic therapy

References

Cleveland Clinic. Wet macular Degeneration. Available at: https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/wet-macular-degeneration. Last accessed May 2025.
Ross AH, Downey L, Devonport H, et al. Recommendations by a UK expert panel on an aflibercept treat-and-extend pathway for the treatment of neovascular age-related macular degeneration. Eye (Lond). 2020;34(10):1825-1834.
Macular Society. Treatments. Available at: https://www.macularsociety.org/diagnosis-treatment/treatments/. Last accessed May 2025.
Hobbs SD, Tripathy K, Pierce K. Wet Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD). In: StatPearls. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; August 11, 2024.