It was announced last week on MedPage Today that a study (published in the February 2009 issue of the Archives of Ophthalmology) of seven patients undertaken by Dr. Alan Robin and his colleagues at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that injections of anecortave acetate (a synthetic molecule derived from cortisol that has been evaluated for use in age-related macular degeneration, but has not been approved by the FDA), successfully reduced IOP in patients with ocular hypertension induced by corticosteroid treatment (ocular hypertension being a well-recognized complication of intravitreal triamcinolone acetonide injection used to treat numerous vascular conditions of the eye).

Dr. Robin cautioned that “further investigation is required to confirm these preliminary results, establish optimal dosing, clarify the mechanism by which the drug lowers intraocular pressure, and determine the clinical indications for the use of anecortave acetate in the management of steroid-related ocular hypertension.”

Read ^[1] the full story on MedPage Today.