Proton therapy for exudative age-related macular degeneration: a randomized, sham-controlled clinical trial.

Purpose: To examine the effect of proton beam irradiation on subfoveal choroidal neovascular membranes (CNVM) associated with age-related macular degeneration (AMD).Randomized, prospective, sham-controlled, double-masked treatment trial.

Methods: Thirty-seven subjects with subfoveal CNVM due to AMD were randomly assigned to 16-Gy proton irradiation delivered in two fractions 24 hours apart or to sham control treatment.