In recent years, the term “macular degeneration” often appears in many popular science articles, online newspapers and even pharmaceutical advertisements, but many people are not as familiar with macular degeneration as they are with cataract, glaucoma, retinal detachment and other common eye diseases. Today, I will take you to understand what is macular degeneration, what are the hazards of macular degeneration and how to treat it, and I believe that we will be able to answer many confusions in your mind. First of all, we have to figure out what is macular. The macula is not a discolored spot in the eye, and the macula itself is not any abnormal tissue. Macula is a part of the normal retina, located in the central area of the retina, which is the most critical part of human vision. It accounts for 70-80% of the visual function of the entire eye. The macula contains a dense and large number of visual cells, and it and its adjacent tissues, such as the vitreous membrane and choroid beneath it, can lead to significant visual dysfunction if lesions occur, even if they are small. Second, let’s learn more about what degeneration is. Degeneration is a prevalent underlying pathological change, a morphological and functional alteration due to a disorder of cellular metabolism. Most degenerative disorders, which do not have a clear external trigger, are often due to genetic factors and aging, among other factors. Not all diseases of the fundus can be called degeneration, and for the same reason, it is not reasonable to generalize various diseases of the macular region as “macular degeneration”. In the general sense of “macular degeneration”, we refer to age-related macular degeneration diseases, which are characterized by slow progression in both eyes, mostly in the elderly. In medicine, we call it “age-related macular degeneration” (AMD). Age-related macular degeneration is recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO) as one of the three major blindness-causing eye diseases, along with cataract and glaucoma. In China, about 16% of people over 50 years old suffer from age-related macular degeneration, and the total number of patients is nearly 40 million. In short, about 1 in 6 people over 50 years old suffer from age-related macular degeneration. What are the symptoms of macular degeneration? How to determine whether you have macular degeneration or not? Macular degeneration is divided into two forms of expression: atrophic and exudative. Atrophic macular degeneration is caused by the accumulation of metabolic products of the optic cells under the retina, resulting in retinal atrophy. Exudative macular degeneration is due to the growth of neovascularization under the retina, and this neovascularization is like a water pipe with cracks, which tends to leak and bleed thus destroying the macula and damaging vision. The clinical symptoms of the two types of macular degeneration are not the same, and the prognosis is also very different. Atrophic macular degeneration may have no visual impairment or only a slight loss of vision in its early stages. However, in the later stages, some patients may gradually develop blurring of the center of the visual field and may have difficulty reading and recognizing the faces of others, although only a very small number of people become blind. Compared to the relatively mild clinical symptoms of atrophic macular degeneration, exudative macular degeneration appears to be aggressive. Let’s focus on exudative macular degeneration. In exudative macular degeneration, there are specific growth factors, especially vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) levels, that are abnormally high in the eye. This abnormally increased factor leads to the formation of choroidal neovascularization, which is adjacent to the retina. The neovascularization rapidly enters between the retina and the choroid, and as mentioned earlier, the neovascularization tends to bleed and leak, and the macular area while being particularly sensitive, therefore, the patient’s visual function is significantly reduced. The most common manifestation is blurred and distorted vision. This symptom will gradually worsen.