Emerging treatments for viral retinitis.

Cytomegalovirus is the most frequent cause of viral retinitis. It rarely causes disease in immunocompetent individuals, but is an important cause of retinitis in immunocompromised patients. Therapy with ganciclovir or foscarnet may result in a decrease in the morbidity related to cytomegalovirus, but problems with drug toxicity and development of clinical and viral resistance mandate additional therapeutic approaches. Preliminary phase I/II clinical trials suggest that human neutralising monoclonal antibodies to cytomegalovirus plus ganciclovir or foscarnet may be more effective than either ganciclovir or foscarnet alone for treating cytomegalovirus retinitis and in prolonging the time to cytomegalovirus disease progression in patients with AIDS. An approach based on an antisense oligonucleotide complementary to cytomegalovirus messenger RNA also shows promise.