Circulating Levels of Interferon-Gamma in Patients with Neovascular Age-Related Macular Degeneration in Yogyakarta.

INTRODUCTION:Neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nAMD) is a major factor contributing to blindness and impaired visual acuity in elderly people. The pathophysiology of nAMD involves excessive inflammation events in the macula. Thus, it is crucial to study the dynamics of an important pro-inflammatory cytokine, interferon-gamma (IFN-γ).MATERIALS AND METHODS:This research is aimed to investigate plasma IFN-γ profiles of patients with nAMD. In this crosssectional study, blood plasma samples of 16 patients with AMD and 23 age-matched controls were collected. Samples were examined for two inflammatory cytokines (IFN-γ) using a commercially available enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay.Acquired data were log transformed to normalize any outliers before conducting student'st-test using the SPSS software.RESULTS:IFN-γ levels were higher in the control group, without statistically significant difference between the two groups.CONCLUSION:IFN-γ levels were not significantly different between patients with AMD and controls.