Treatment of senile macular degeneration by laser photocoagulation.
117 eyes of 103 patients among 476 patients with senile macular degeneration fulfilled a criterion for treatment with blue-green Argon (n = 20 eyes), green Argon (n = 15 eyes) Krypton-red (n = 58 eyes) and combined treatment (24 eyes). In 50 consecutive treated eyes (= 50 patients) with an observation time exceeding one year a visual acuity greater than or equal to 6/18 was preserved in 34 eyes. This post-laser course differs from the spontaneous course of the disease reported in literature indicating that about 70% of eyes with perifoveal neovascular lesion will develop legal blindness within 2 years. Even though the spontaneous course in this material is unknown, and the comparability to patient material in literature is questionable, it might be concluded that a considerable part of the patients with senile macular degeneration with neovascular lesions might benefit from laser-treatment.