Severe eye injuries seen with phage therapy

In 2017 a few severe eye injuries occurred including among cancer patients. A group of researchers led by Dr. Wataru Matsumoto head of the Viswanl3 Institute at the University of Tokyo has conducted an international retrospective study of this acute eye injury among patients suffering from leukemia. The results were presented in a research article published the British Journal of Ophthalmology.

Epithelial blood vessel degeneration (ECD) is one of the most frequent complications among patients with leukemia or other blood cancers. ECD may early or prove fatal if left untreated.

Investigation of ECD.

In this retrospective study Matsumoto and his colleagues including Dr. Hiroki Yanagisawa found a group of 38 patients with leukemia receiving treatment with intravenous leukotrienes (VELETs) or intracardiac VEVTs either intravenously or via meridian blood. These drugs act by targeting VEGF- (vascular glycoprotein) receptors and cause reversible dilatation of blood vessels. VEVTs target all existing ECD therapeutic treatments. It is unknown whether VEVTs prevent or exacerbate ECD-defined patients physiological and pathological progression of ECD-defined disease. Because of this it is necessary to investigate VEVTs efficacy in breast cancer.