As of now many surgeons have already attempted to assess whether such surgery is beneficial and all are in agreement that it is only rarely beneficial by current techniques. The NEI clinical trial will undoubtedly reach a similar conclusion. It is now well known that surgical removal of submacular neovascular membranes also removes the RPE layer in the immediate neighborhood and this is probably a major reason why such surgery is so relatively unsuccessful. This study will try to determine this. I suspect not because producing many local destructive lesions in the retina to cure AMD doesn't make much scientific sense.
Some controversy still surrounds the first clinical trial.
The previous study consisted of three groups of RP patients. One group received vitamin A, a second vitamin E and a third a placebo. The A group progressed slightly more slowly, the E group slightly more rapidly than the placebo group. The study concluded that A was good and E bad for RP patients. Criticism stems from the fact that they did not control for the possibility that three randomly selected populations of RP patients might progress at slightly different rates.