Pilot Study Reduced Fluence PDT /Visudyne With Ranibizumab vs Ranibizumab Monotherapy for Exudative Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD)

This will be a 13 month prospective, blinded, randomized sham controled parallel safety study. There will be 2 treatment arms.

Arm 1 will receive reduced fluence PDT at baseline followed immediately by an intravitreal injection of Lucentis. Subjects in arm 1 will receive 2 additional injections of Ranibizumab (Lucentis) over the next 2 months. Starting at month 3, they will receive combination reduced fluence PDT and intravitreal Ranibizumab (Lucentis) if they develop recurrence of the subretinal fluid, cystoid macular edema, increased pigment epithelial detachment (PED), or increased retinal thickness > 100 microns compared to the best prior thickness measure on OCT. Patients will be eligible for repeat combination reduced fluence PDT + intravitreal Ranibizumab (Lucentis) every 3 months thereafter. Group 1 patients are eligible for treatment with combination reduced fluence PDT and Ranibizumab (Lucentis) at any point at the 3 month time point or thereafter. After month 3, if patients were not eligible for combined therapy (<3 months since the last combination therapy) and have >2 lines of vision loss or > 100 microns of increased retinal thickness on OCT compared to most recent measure at their monthly visit, they would be eligible for an injection of Ranibizumab (Lucentis) as monotherapy. Thereafter, subjects will have combination therapy if retreatment criteria were met and it has been >3 months since the last PDT treatment.

Study arm 2 will receive 3 monthly intravitreal injections of Ranibizumab (Lucentis). Following month 2, they will be eligible for re-treatment with Ranibizumab (Lucentis) if retreatment criteria are met (same criteria as study arm 1). At intervals of no less than 3 months from the previous sham PDT, they will receive sham PDT if retreatment criteria are met.