Advances in Cell-Based or Cell-Biomaterial Scaffolds for the Treatment of Age-Related Macular Degeneration

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a degenerative retina disease characterized by irreversible damage to macular cells and has become one of the leading causes of blindness in the elderly worldwide. Therapies based on cells or cell-biomaterial scaffolds are popular AMD treatments in recent years, where cell therapy is the use of cell types such as progenitor/stem cells, which are delivered into the subretinal space by injection or vector transplantation to treat AMD. Meanwhile, cell-biomaterial scaffolds delivered to the lesion site by vector transplantation have been widely developed, and the implanted cell-biomaterial scaffolds implanted cell-biomaterial scaffolds can promote the reintegration of cells at the lesion site and solve the problems of translocation and discrete cellular structure produced by cell injection. Although these methods have achieved some results, a large number of preclinical studies and clinical trials are still needed to verify their stability and reliability. Therefore, this article provides a review of the latest findings and real-life challenges of cell-based and cell-biomaterial scaffolds for the treatment of AMD to offer new ideas for subsequent disease prevention and treatment of AMD.