Macular Degeneration 2000 dollars vs 50 dollars a treatment: Same Results

Bevacizumab versus Ranibizumab — The Verdict
Philip J. Rosenfeld, M.D., Ph.D.
April 28, 2011 (10.1056/NEJMe1103334)
ArticleReferences
For 5 years, patients and clinicians have wrestled with the choice between two drugs for the treatment of neovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a common cause of irreversible blindness among the elderly worldwide. Vision loss results from the abnormal growth and leakage of blood vessels in the macula, a specialized portion of the retina responsible for the best visual acuity. Without this macular vision, patients become legally blind. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), the cytokine primarily responsible for blood-vessel growth, is inhibited when anti-VEGF drugs are injected repeatedly into the eye, and blindness is prevented in most patients. The majority of treated patients go on to have some improvement in vision.
A well planned study comparing the effects of these two drugs : Bevacizumab vs Ranizumab (50 dollars per month vs 2000 dollars per month for one injection into the eye) showed that the produce the same results.
This is not the first time that expensive medications have proved not to do what they were advertised to do.
In the field of Diabetes: no drug has been, in practical terms, shown to be superior to the old fashioned METFORMIN.. all the new drugs sometimes ten times more expensive, are no better than METFORMIN and Change in the Quality of LIFE

All that Glitters is not God has never been so true... in the introduction of newer medications for chronic diseases.
Dont be the first to use a new medication, and at the same time dont be the last one either, said a professor of mine at University of Miami.