Beschreibung:
<jats:p>Retinal ganglion cell apoptosis has long been highlighted as an important early event in glaucoma. Recent work from our group has shown that it is possible to visualise its occurrence<jats:italic>in vivo</jats:italic>using detection of apoptosing retinal cells (DARC), a recently devised non-invasive realtime imaging technique using fluorescently labelled annexin V and ophthalmoscopy. To date, DARC has been used only experimentally, but phase I clinical trials are due to start shortly in glaucoma patients. Extrapolation of these initial studies suggests that DARC may provide a new and meaningful clinical end-point in glaucoma, enabling early identification before the onset of irreversible vision loss as well as quantitative tracking of cellular degeneration and response to treatment.</jats:p>