Rose McHugh was months away from losing her vision before the photo-dynamic surgery to correct wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD) was performed in an operation at the Royal Liverpool University hospital. The treatment, pioneered in Liverpool, Aberdeen and centres in Europe and the US, involves photo-dynamic therapy by preventing the leaking blood vessels from further damaging the macula. The process, which takes half an hour, involves the intravenous infusion of a light-sensitive dye, Visudyne. Ms McHugh is the first British patient outside clinical trials to undergo the treatment which, if successful, is hoped to help one in 10 of the 600,000 people diagnosed as having the wet form of AMD. Simon Harding, consultant ophthalmologist at the Royal Liverpool University, described the treatment as a 'huge breakthrough', and the first treatment of wet AMD that involved the centre of the macula. 'Until now there has been nothing of proven benefit for people with the wet form of AMD, apart from laser treatment which helps only a very small number,' he said. However, there is another year of clinical trials to go, and the Royal National Institute for the Blind said that the procedure would only benefit a select group of AMD sufferers. - In September the RNIB and the Macular Disease Society announced they were part of an international alliance formed to raise awareness of AMD. The AMD Alliance International commissioned a survey which found that most people were unfamiliar with the disease and only 2 per cent of the 6,591 people questioned attributed AMD to severe vision loss.