January 17, 2026
1 min read
Key takeaways:
- Multimodal imaging and AI are both beneficial for managing patients with geographic atrophy.
- Cell therapies and visual cycle modulation are just two of many treatment avenues being studied.
WAIKOLOA, Hawaii — Geographic atrophy is a growing worldwide health issue, with approximately 8 million patients impacted, according to a speaker.
At Retina 2026, Healio | OSN associate medical editor Rishi P. Singh, MD, FASRS, delivered an expansive update on the GA treatment landscape.
“GA is a progressive disease. About 1.6 years after diagnosis, 67% of patients lose their ability to drive,” he said. “Within 2 years of diagnosis, a huge percentage of these patients lose two lines of vision.”
Additionally, 77% of patients report that GA affected their vision faster than expected after being diagnosed, Singh said.
Multimodal imaging is extremely beneficial for monitoring GA, he said. Developments in AI have allowed for the mapping of photoreceptors and retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cells, which can help with disease monitoring and quantification of therapeutic responses.
“What we’ve learned through many different studies is that it can quantify photoreceptors and RPE and develop ratios. This is where AI really becomes helpful,” Singh said. “This is truly not something we can do clinically via our own measurement techniques.”
Limitations among the two currently FDA-approved GA treatments, pegcetacoplan and avacincaptad pegol, include patient compliance with a monthly or bimonthly treatment schedule, intraocular inflammation and volume-related injection side effects, Singh explained.
“Only a subset of our patients are currently on these drugs,” he said. “That’s because there is just a lot going on in regard to treating these patients monthly or every month. Because there is no vision bump, and only preservation of tissue, some patients are less motivated than others to continue.”
Visual cycle modulation, cell therapy and neuroprotection are all mechanisms currently being explored for future GA treatments.
Therapies in development for GA and wet age-related macular degeneration include vonaprument (Annexon Biosciences) and elamipretide (Stealth BioTherapeutics). However, Singh encouraged retina specialists to take advantage of the FDA-approved treatments that are already available.
“The call to arms right now is that new drugs won’t be out until 2028 or beyond,” he said. “We have drugs right now in our practice. I would not recommend waiting 2 years before instituting these therapies in your own practice.”
Sources/Disclosures
Source:
Singh RP. Update on the treatment of geographic atrophy. Presented at: Retina 2026; Jan. 17-23, 2026; Waikoloa, Hawaii.
Disclosures:
Singh reports consulting for Alcon, Apellis, Bausch + Lomb, EyePoint Pharmaceuticals, Genentech, Iveric Bio, Regeneron, Regenxbio and Zeiss and being an independent research contractor for Janssen.
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