Auntie Zhang, who lives in Jianggan District, came to the hospital the other day, and told the doctor in distress that she had found “macular” in a recent medical checkup, however, the doctor told her that “everyone has macular, and she suffers from macular degeneration”, and Auntie Zhang couldn’t understand it: Isn’t macular a disease? Why is it degenerating again? Let’s first understand the fundus. What is the fundus? Comparing the eye to a camera, the fundus is the camera’s negative, responsible for recognizing foreign objects. There are three extremely important structures in the fundus: the retina, the macula and the optic nerve. The retina is responsible for collecting light from the colorful world and taking pictures like a camera. The macula is the most important structure on the retina, responsible for identifying large and small objects and colors clearly. The visual acuity of the vision chart we usually check reflects the function of the macula, and the retina around the macula is mainly responsible for the visual field. The optic nerve is responsible for transmitting the information collected by the retina to the brain, where the information is processed by the brain. The optic nerve is in the shape of a disk at the bottom of the eye, so it is called the optic disk, also called the optic papilla. So, what happened to Auntie Zhang’s macula? Let’s look at the following two pictures. [Normal fundus] [Auntie Zhang’s fundus] The above two pictures are the normal and Auntie Zhang’s fundus, you can see that Auntie Zhang’s macula is not the same as normal, Auntie Zhang’s macula is age-related macular degeneration. Age-related macular degeneration is a common disease, its onset is closely related to age, the older the age, the higher the incidence rate. In the early stage, there may be no obvious visual changes, but as the disease progresses, there is a gradual decrease in visual acuity, distortion of vision, and even the appearance of a fixed black shadow in the center of the visual field. Correspondingly, the patient’s fundus will show some pathological changes, such as vitreous membrane warts, macular pigmentation disorders, exudation, hemorrhage and so on, which require professional ophthalmological examination. Doctors can make a clear diagnosis by examining the fundus, OCT scanning and fundus angiography. Patients often ask if there is no cure for macular degeneration. With medical advances, at this stage, most of the macular degeneration can be alleviated through treatment. The root cause of macular degeneration is the growth of neovascularization under the retina in the macular area, which may bleed or even grow into scars, thus impairing vision. We can use drugs to inhibit neovascularization to induce neovascularization to shrink, thus saving part of the vision. Age-related macular degeneration has a certain hereditary predisposition, of course, there are also certain environmental factors, for example, ultraviolet rays can damage the macula, so when you go out on days with strong ultraviolet rays, you must remember to take proper protection and wear sunglasses.