Abstract
Age-related macular degeneration, a potentially blinding disease, is now epidemic in the developed world. Roughly one in three people will be affected to some degree by the age of 75 years.1 Medicine's tremendous successes in the battles against cancer, diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, and other common killers have raised the average life expectancy in many countries to more than 75 years and in so doing have inadvertently delivered a new scourge to mankind.In this issue of the Journal, de Jong2 discusses age-related macular degeneration as a complex disorder that begins decades before a patient becomes symptomatic, a molecular derangement . . .