Toward personalized medicine for age-related macular degeneration.

b c a p h t d A GE-RELATED MACULAR DEGENERATION (AMD) IS A complex multifactorial disease. Since the first association between a genetic polymorphism and AMD was discovered, the role of genetic factors in the occurrence of AMD is commonly admitted. Smoking and ody mass index are important environmental factors ssociated with an increased risk of AMD, whereas the urden of genetic factors leads to attributable risk estimates p to 60%. Prediction models based on known genetic nd environmental factors associated with AMD recently ere established. Seddon and associates described a model howing that the risk of developing exudative AMD in the econd eye may vary between 20% and 80% at 3 years, epending on environmental and genetic factors. The next steps to elucidate the role of genetics in AMD attempt to establish genotype–phenotype correlations, to investigate the genes involved in the natural course and severity of AMD, and to analyze the genes potentially involved in therapeutic responses. It is predictable that genes involved in these diverse steps would differ and that genes involved in the occurrence of AMD would not be the same as genes involved in therapeutic responses.