For everyone who wants to cure, God willing, from retinopathy disease

The will and revelation of the Almighty God is to our Prophet, the Chosen One, may God bless him and grant him peace, when he said, “God has not sent down a disease that has not revealed to him a medicine ... “Then the efforts of the Saudi scientist from the homeland joined forces to find a treatment for retinopathy, which was considered impossible to cure in the past.

Today, Dr. Fawzan Al-Kuraia invites you to take advantage of the “genetic” treatment program.

From: Dr. Fawzan ,, Riyadh

Senior Genetics Research Scientist, Research Center

King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center in Riyadh

I am pleased to hear about the great interest of a wide range of patients afflicted with weakness or blindness in the treatment research program that we are about to start at the end of this year, God willing, and it was that Brother Faisal Al-Ghamdi invited me to explain the program in a simplified manner through his blog, and here I am Accept his call and put in your hands an easy explanation of the program as follows:

Retinodystrophy is a genetic disease that affects the retina and has multiple forms, some of which lead to progressive impairment of vision, and some of them are so severe that the child is blind from birth.

Until recently, these retinopathies were considered hopeless cases, so that major eye hospitals apologized for their follow-up, but the medical revolution that accompanied the discovery of the genetic map refused to leave its mark on all aspects of medicine, including ophthalmology and in particular the retina, where American researchers were able and British people, less than two years ago, demonstrated the effectiveness of injecting a healthy copy of the defective gene responsible for one of the types of retinopathy pigmentosa in humans, and these studies caused a sensation in the research and medical community alike.

And in coordination with one of the major American research teams in this field, we decided at the Research Center at King Faisal Specialist Hospital, in cooperation with King Khalid Eye Specialist Hospital in Riyadh, to start a gene therapy project for retinopathy patients.

Perhaps it is appropriate in this regard to clarify some important points through the method of question and answer as follows:

Question: What is the meaning of the term gene therapy?

Answer: Gene therapy is a treatment method that relies on compensating for the defective (gene) function of the (mutated) gene by providing a healthy copy. There are various forms of ing the healthy copy into the patient’s body.

Question: And what about gene therapy for patients with retina in particular, how will the healthy copy be introduced?

Answer: This is by injecting a genetically modified virus so that its pathological components are destroyed and replaced by the healthy copy of the damaged human gene. The injection is directly in the retina, where we do not need to replace the function of the damaged gene except in the retina.

Question: Does this open the way for treating all hereditary retinal diseases?

Answer: In theory, it may be possible to inject the correct copy of any gene, but the problem is that each gene has a specific function and therefore it is necessary to test each gene separately to ensure the effectiveness of the treatment and this is of course very expensive as the disease must be introduced in animals and Then try to treat it and then apply it to humans.

Question: So what types of hereditary retinopathy have been treated and that you intend to start treating?

Answer: There are more than forty genes whose impairment leads to a defect in the function of the retina, but only one treatment program, RPE65, was launched less than two years ago in three centers, one in Britain and two of them in America. As for the gene that we are about to launch A treatment program for him is MERTK.

Question: And why did you choose MERTK specifically?

Answer: The mutation in this gene was one of the first mutations that were discovered in Saudi patients with retinopathy, in addition to that, there is a type of rats that have a natural mutation (with no human involvement) in this gene, which leads to retinopathy pigmentosa, which is very similar to Its counterpart in humans, and then the clinical trials on rats were one of the first experiments of this type, and the response of the rats was encouraging, which prompted us to work diligently to launch a treatment program for this particular gene.

Question: What can retinopathy patients do to benefit from this program?

Answer: The first step should be to work on knowing the type of mutation that causes retinopathy, and this is possible through DNA testing after signing a written approval approved by the Research Council at King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center, and this will be coordinated by the Clinical Coordinator “Mays Hashem “. Several things should be noted here:

First: The approval of the examination has absolutely nothing to do with participation in the treatment program, which means that the patient has the full right to stop upon knowing the mutation causing his retinopathy without participating in the treatment program in the future.

Second: I always remind my patients that being infected with a mutation in another gene, not MERTK nor RPE65, does not mean the end and despair, but on the contrary, knowing the mutation that causes it opens the way for the patient to participate in treatment programs in the future when it becomes available, and I hope that success Initial programs will pay a lot of philanthropists to donate to support this type of research, which provides an opportunity to start treating other genes, and I also do not forget to mention that knowing the responsible mutation is an important step in itself to limit the occurrence of other cases in the family through certain methods that we explain in a timely manner in a session Genetic counseling.

Third: I would like to warn that genetic testing needs patience as the large number of genes that the testers have to scan means that waiting two, three or more months at times should not be a bother.

In conclusion, I would like to warn that whoever wants to benefit from the examination should contact the clinical coordinator who works with me “Mays Hashem”

On the phone: 01-4647272 Ext: 35107 I wish everyone health and wellness.

The doctor''s words ended,

The coordinator was contacted and explained that the contact time is from eight in the morning until five in the evening, and that the patient’s medical reports are sent to the fax: 01-4424585, or to the e-mail

mhashem@kfshrc.edu.sa

It will be shown to the doctor, after which the patient will be contacted.

You can also leave inquiries here by commenting in this post, and they will be answered, God willing

Taking into account the wording of the question to be clear away from the use of colloquial vocabulary.

I wish healing for every patient, God willing.