Researchers query FDA about updating requirements for dru...( Rockville MD Scientists and the Foo...),Health

Rockville, MD Scientists and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are discussing how new technologies in ophthalmology, which make it possible to collect better data about experimental treatments, might affect FDA clinical trials requirements.

Researchers from the National Institutes of Healths National Eye Institute (NEI) and major US universities and research centers met in a roundtable discussion with FDA representatives before an audience of their peers on November 28-29, 2006 in Washington DC.

The discussion among the 30 participants focused on endpoints and clinical trial strategies for evaluating new treatments for age-related macular degeneration (AMD), diabetic retinopathy and other severe retinal disorders.

The exchange is the subject of Report from the NEI/FDA Ophthalmic Clinical Trial Design and Endpoints Symposium, an article in the February 2008 issue of ARVOs peer-reviewed journal, Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science (http://www.iovs.org/cgi/content/full/49/2/479). The authors are Karl G. Csaky of Duke University Medical Center, Elaine A. Richman of Richman Associates and Frederick L. Ferris III, of NEI.

The FDA currently recommends that clinical study sponsors compare changes in visual function (measured on a visual acuity chart of letters and numbers) as a primary endpoint in assessing the effect of a new compound for treating a disorder of the eye.

Many scientists feel that the FDA parameters may not be sensitive enough for studying diseases that progress very slowly or for studying the effect of new anti-VEGF agents for treating AMD. They query whether new technologies could more efficiently detect a treatments effectiveness, thereby hastening the translation of clinical trials into better treatments in the doctors office.

Such new technologies include optical coherence tomography (OCT), a scanning technology th
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