Purpose
To assess the difference in best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) at diagnosis between first and second eye in patients suffering from bilateral neovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD).
Methods
We reviewed the charts of all patients that had a clinical examination for neovascular AMD in the University Eye Clinic of Creteil in January 2013. We retrospectively analyzed demographic and clinical data for 264 patients.
Results
75/264 patients (28.4%) developed choroidal neovascularization (CNV) in the felloweye with a time interval between the two events of 30.3 months (standard deviation (SD): 27.7). The mean BCVA at diagnosis of the first eye involved was 0.68 (SD: 0.41) logarithm ofminimum angle of resolution (logMAR) and the mean BCVA for the second eye was 0.36 (SD: 0.29) logMAR (p<0.0001). When diagnosingg CNV in the second eye, 14/75 patients (18.7%) were asymptomatic, CNV being detected thanks to systematic examination performed as routine management of the first eye.
Conclusions
Compared to visual acuity in the first eye at the time of diagnosis of active CNV, we found that visual acuity in the second eye was better, this was possibly due to several factors, including changes in follow up care. Moreover 18, 7% of the patients were asymptomatic, which highlights the importance of the screening of the fellow eye in neovascular AMD.
Keywords: 412 age-related macular degeneration •
754 visual acuity