A wireless retinal implant can restore central vision in patients with advanced age-related macular degeneration (AMD), according to clinical trial results published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Advanced atrophic AMD, also known as geographic atrophy (GA), is the leading cause of irreversible blindness in older adults, affecting more than 5 million people worldwide.

The international, multi-center trial was co-led by José-Alain Sahel, M.D., director of the UPMC Vision Institute, Daniel Palanker, Ph.D., professor of ophthalmology at Stanford University, and Frank Holz, M.D., professor of ophthalmology at the University of Bonn, Germany.