STUART — Walter Robinson knew his left eye was bad two years ago when he poured his morning orange juice straight onto the counter, completely missing the glass.

“I still kept driving, but by then I was kind of scaring myself,” the 79-year-old Port Salerno man said.

Robinson’s vision is no longer scaring him — it’s better than ever, he said — since enrolling a year ago in a clinical trial of a new treatment for wet macular degeneration, the eye disorder that was blotting out the central vision in his left eye. Retina Care Specialists still is enrolling new patients at both their Stuart and Palm Beach Gardens offices, however, patients must travel to Palm Beach Gardens for treatment in the clinical trial.

Retina Care Specialists, which serves patients from all over the Treasure Coast, is the only community-based retina practice involved in the study.

WHAT IS WET MACULAR DEGENERATION?

Macular degeneration, a deterioration of the central retina, is the leading cause of blindness in people over age 55 and affects millions of Americans. In the wet version of the disorder, vessels grow and leak into the eye and distort or obscure central vision.

WHAT TREATMENTS ARE AVAILABLE?

• Lasers — Doctors first used lasers to seal the vessels, but treatment can cause scarring.

• VEGF traps— A drug traps the protein that encourages the leaking vessels to grow — vascular endothelial growth factor or VEGF — is injected into the eye monthly.

• New treatment by Regeneron — The treatment being studied in the trials Retina Care Specialists is involved with trap VEGF, but also bind to and inhibit a second growth factor for the bad vessels.

Give the vessels even less encouragement to grow and leak, and vision should improve more rapidly and the patient can go longer between injections, said Dr. Paul Gallogly of Retina Care Specialists.

WHAT ARE THE CLINICAL TRIALS?

Patients who enroll in the Regeneron trial will either receive injections of the new treatment or Lucentis, which already is proven stabilize vision in 90 percent of patients and improve vision in 40 percent.

“It’s pretty much a win-win for the patient,” Gallogly said. “The VEGF traps are the cutting edge treatment.”

All care is free. Lucentis would cost $2,000 per monthly injection.

For more information or to see if you are eligible for the study, go to www.retinacarespecialists.com or call (772) 278-0850.