AGE-RELATED MACULAR DEGEN-eration (AMD), the leading cause of legal blindness in
people 65 years or older in the United States, 1 is a degenerative disorder of the retinal
pigment epithelium (RPE) and neurosensory retina. The macula is the portion of the central
retina with the greatest concentration of photoreceptors and provides high-resolution visual
acuity. The early stages of AMD are characterized clinically by the development of soft
drusen associated with pigmentary abnormalities of the RPE and retina (FIGURE 1A) …