Recently, data have emerged that age-related macular degeneration (AMD) has been implicated as a risk factor for severe consequences from COVID-19. AMD, the leading cause of irreversible vision loss in Western countries in people over 50 years of age, is a chronic age-related neurodegenerative disease of the retina and retinal pigment epithelium (RPE), associated with inflammation and aging. AMD is a comorbid condition that, as reported, increases the risk of severe complications of SARS-CoV-2 infection, including respiratory failure and death (25%), a risk that is higher than type 2 diabetes (21%) and obesity (13%).

Researchers from the Chobanian and Avedisian Medical School at Boston University hypothesized that AMD and COVID-19 share common genetic risk factors, and also developed and conducted a study that revealed a new link between these two diseases with variants of the PDGFB gene. This gene encodes platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF), which plays a role in the formation of new blood vessels and is involved in abnormal changes in blood vessels that occur in AMD. They also found that more severe outcomes of COVID-19 were associated with AMD, likely due to a genetic predisposition to complement protein dysfunction, as well as a higher level of PDGF in serum.

The results of the study were published in the Journal of Clinical Medicine