Clinical Study of Retinal Pigment Epithelial Cell Transplantation for Age-related Macular Degeneration and Development of Related Drugs

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a chronic degenerative retinal disease caused by atrophy or loss of the function of retinal pigmentation epithelium (RPE) cells. It often causes apoptosis or dysfunction of photoreceptor cells, which may eventually lead to visual impairment or even blindness. AMD is one of the three major diseases causing blindness in the world. In recent years, allogeneic RPE cell therapy is considered to have been the breakthrough for the treatment of AMD. This article reviews the clinical research advances of RPE cells from three different sources for the treatment of AMD and the development of related drugs.