Abstract
Purpose:
To identify the real world standard of care, treatment patterns, medical history, resource use and costs of patients with choroidal neovascularization (CNV) secondary to pathologic myopia (PM), also known as myopic CNV, in Canada.
Methods:
The analysis includes the final data of 98 patients with myopic CNV who were recruited by Ophthalmologists and Retina Specialists from 16 centres across Canada to participate in this retrospective, multicenter study. Medical records covering at least one year and up to two years of follow up data from the CNV diagnosis were analyzed to gather all information related to myopic CNV.
Results:
Patients had a mean age of 55.0 years (range: 22 - 82 years) at the time of their first lifetime CNV episode. The baseline characteristics of patients showed that 71.4% of participants were female, 75.5% were Caucasian, 57.1% had only subfoveal CNV in the affected eye and 28.6% had only juxtafoveal CNV. Thirteen percent (13.3%) of patients had both eyes affected with CNV. The approximate mean Snellen score at the time of CNV diagnosis was 20/125 in the affected eye and 20/80 in the fellow eye. Forty-nine percent (49%) of patients had visual acuity (VA) severity in the affected eye of normal/mild vision loss (VA 20/20 to > 20/80), 19% moderate vision loss (VA 20/80 to > 20/200), and 32% severe vision loss/nearly blind (VA ≤ 20/200). The mean duration of CNV episode was 0.78 years. Almost 90% of myopic CNV patients consulted a retinal specialist (on average 6.0 times per year), 11.2% of patients had to visit the ER and 2.0% were admitted to hospital due to CNV secondary to PM. Most patients were treated with an anti-VEGF therapy and received on average 3.8 injections per year. The annual average myopic CNV-related cost per patient was $3,433 across all patients. The cost was $2,964 for patients with mild vision loss, $3,595 for patients with moderate vision loss and $4,060 for patients with severe vision loss.
Conclusions:
Information on Myopic CNV is very limited in the literature. This is the first study worldwide investigating the burden of the disease. The baseline characteristics of Canadian patients presented here are aligned with other few data available in the public domain. In addition, the myopic CNV-related costs of care are increasing with the severity of vision loss and are substantial to the Canadian health care system.
Keywords: 453 choroid: neovascularization •
460 clinical (human) or epidemiologic studies: health care delivery/economics/manpower