Is age-related macular degeneration a new disease?

Age-related macular degeneration (ARMD) is a leading cause of blindness. Th e etiology of ARMD is not known, and for many patients current treatments a re insufficient. Knowledge of the antiquity of a disease might be a useful clue in understanding its pathogenesis - it is necessary, but of course not sufficient, that the cause of a disease be at least as old as the disease itself. Here I note that, curiously, ARMD has only described quite recently (1855), more than 200 years later than the first description of glaucoma ( 1622) and many centuries after the first description of cataracts. Potentia l implications of this late description of ARMD and future work on the anti quity of ARMD are discussed Copyright (C) 2001 S. Karger AG, Basel.