REPORTAGE – This disease, which leads to loss of vision, affects a quarter of people over 75 years old. Every day at the Quinze-Vingts hospital in Paris, 80 patients receive treatment directly injected into the eye to slow down its development.
A spring morning at the Quinze-Vingts National Hospital in Paris. The man who has been waiting for a few minutes in a small waiting room on the ground floor, in his sixties, seems stressed. Sitting on a seat, he twists his hands in all directions while looking worriedly at the door in front of him. This morning he is to receive his very first injection against age-related macular degeneration (AMD) which is attacking one of his eyes. The door suddenly opens on a nurse: “Come on, to us!“.
Behind her, in what looks like a mini-operating room, a green-clad surgeon is preparing a syringe. For long minutes, the doctor and nurse carefully disinfect the patient’s previously anesthetized eye, before gently inserting the – very thin – needle into it. “It’s always impressive the first time, many patients fear having their eye gouged out. But in reality it is harmless and completely painless
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