SCIENTISTS at Southampton have made findings that could save the NHS millions of pounds in treatments to prevent blindness.

They have found that a cancer drug is as effective a treatment for a common cause of blindness as a drug hundreds of pounds dearer.

In a two-year clinical trial, involving the University of Southampton, the cheaper anti-cancer drug was proven to be equally as effective in treating neovascular or wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD) as a more expensive drug specifically formulated for this purpose.

The findings of the study, led by Queen’s scientist Professor Usha Chakravarthy, have been published in medical journal The Lancet. It concludes that two drug treatments Lucentis and Avastin are equally effective in treating the condition and that sight was equally well preserved with either drug.

AMD is a common cause of sight loss in older people with at least 23,000 older people diagnosed with the condition in the UK each year. Untreated, two-thirds of people with this condition will experience severe loss of sight within two years.

Lucentis, the drug most commonly used, costs about £700 per injection but Avastin costs about £60 per injection.

Southampton University said that the NHS could save £84.5m annually based on injecting 17,295 eyes each year by switching from Lucentis to Avastin. This comes after Hampshire health bosses last year decided to discontinue its use of cancer drug Avastin to treat people in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight suffering from AMD.

As previously reported, this was after drug company Novartis, which produces the more expensive and officially approved drug, Lucentis, sought a judicial review challenging the use of Avastin, which is not fully licensed to treat eye conditions.

For this clinical trial, known as IVAN, a team of scientists and eye specialists from 23 hospitals and universities, including the University of Southampton, Queen’s University Belfast, University of Bristol and Oxford University, have spent five years investigating the two drugs and whether they are equally effective and safe. Out of the 610 patients with wet AMD that entered the trial, 47 were from Southampton General Hospital - one of the highest recruiting centres.

The IVAN study also monitored the drugs for serious adverse events, which included death, heart attacks, strokes, and any other event that was life-threatening, disabling or resulted in hospitalisation. These were similar for the two drugs, however, deaths occurred less frequently in the group that received monthly treatment rather than treatment as needed.

Andrew Lotery, a professor of ophthalmology at the University of Southampton, said this was an important study that could save millions.

Professor Ian Young, director of research and development at the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust, which sponsored the trial, said: “The findings of the IVAN study will be of great importance for the management of patients with wet AMD throughout the world.”