This is a phase 1 trial (usually just undertaken to check safety before larger trials are done to test efficacy and dose), so it seems all the more amazing that such a big improvement was seen.
Really depends on the person. I have very small sight problems (+.5/-.75) which don't affect me most of the time, but are a danger in traffic. The doctor that diagnosed that really didn't care to answer any of my questions.
Did i kick someone's puppy here or what? I could understand getting this level of disagreement if i claimed all doctors are psychopaths, but all i did was point out that not all eye doctors enjoy their job. Not like i give a shit about karma, but i am honestly curious what caused this seemingly extremely irrational reaction.
I had a retinal tear 4 weeks ago and then then retina detached and started sagging in front of my lens, blocking half of my field of view. Seriously scary, especially since my mother has lost most of her vision after a similar problem.
I got a pneumatic retinopexy a couple of days later. Amazingly, it only took about 30 minutes in a (nice) back-room of the retina clinic with local anesthesia, and the retina re-attached itself in the course of the next few days. Now I am just waiting for the gas bubble to dissolve while my vision is getting better each day.
Its stories like yours that give me the (good) shivers. Just routine 30 minute operations we do now that would be considered miracles less than a century ago. It reaffirms a belief that humanity is capable of doing great things and solving insanely difficult problems.
In a very sincere and unironic way, "my faith in humanity is restored".
The one thing that drives me away is that while I feel like I am improving one's quality of life, much of my experience in medicine has been seeing my mentors and role models save one's life. It's probably the one thing I will miss most if I choose ophthalmology.
It's saving lives in a different way. Without my eyesight, everything would be difficult. I probably could no longer code, or at least in the same capacity. I love visual art.
I don't have much eyesight left, but a retinal detachment surgery helped make sure I did have some.
Strictly speaking, it's a big improvement because you're hearing about a phase 1 trial, and predictably so - not surprising at all.
Phase 1 trials typically get little publicity unless they either kill someone or turn in a statistically-significant improvement. (A phase 1 trial in which the controls do exactly as well as the experimentals and no side-effects are observed, which is highly likely for even excellent treatments because of the tiny sample size, will very rarely be written up because it's boring.) And because their sample sizes are always tiny, any statistically-significant improvement will always be an extremely large effect size. If the effect hadn't been improbably large, you would almost certainly not be reading about it now on HN.
And because of this selection bias, the effects you hear about tend to be massively overestimated. This is one of Andrew Gelman's points: the 'statistical significance filter' massively inflates effect sizes, a type M error, which then subsequently regress to the mean of the true smaller effect. This is why you're not supposed to take Phase I trials as meaningful estimates of the effect size, why statisticians emphasize they're supposed to be about safety, and why you don't do power analysis based on the observed results (either post hoc or for designing the next big ones). This is also part of why you hear about so many amazing pilot experiments in animals or humans but then the big followup trials are much more modest or nulls.
Interesting point. I was thinking about it in terms of dose, usually phase 1 trials seem to have significantly lower doses, to feel out any issues with safety. But perhaps that doesn't apply in this case, and you are left with the issues you mention about statistical significance, selection bias and regression to the mean.
Think about that for a second. Nearly blind, or actually blind, to being able to read again.
I'm seriously debating specializing in ophthalmology, and sub-specializing in retina surgery just became an even more appealing career plan for me.