Topical agents that temporarily treat presbyopia without affecting other aspects of vision are on the cusp of becoming approved and available for widespread use, according to a presentation given at the 2019 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Ophthalmology.
“Presbyopia literally means ‘old eye’ and results in a gradual decrease in lens accommodation, leading to a significant lack of functional near vision,” said Sheri Rowen, MD of NVISION Eye Centers in Newport Beach, during her presentation. “It affects the majority of people over the age of 40. Currently, the mainstay of therapy includes reading glasses, contact lenses, and “a host of surgical procedures, which can be invasive and difficult to reverse,” she continued. There are a number of new pharmaceutical agents currently being investigated for the treatment of this condition. They are based on two mechanisms of action. The first addresses the accommodative aspect of the lens itself. The second mechanism of action is employed by a class of drugs known as pupillary miotics. They exert a pinhole effect, which increases the depth of field effect without affecting accommodation
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