Abstract
Purpose: :
To report the correlation between patient reported symptoms and visual acuity outcomes for patients randomised to intravitreal bevacizumab in the ABC trial.
Methods: :
Prospective, multi-centre, double-masked, randomised, controlled trial. Participants were randomly assigned (1:1) to intravitreal bevacizumab or standard therapy available when the trial commenced (PDT, Macugen or sham treatment). The primary end-point was gain in vision at 12 months. A data and safety monitoring committee and steering committee monitored the conduct of the study.
Results: :
Of the 131 patients enrolled in the trial, 65 were randomised to bevacizumab with a mean (standard deviation) age of 78.8 (7.5) years and 32.3 % of patients in the bevacizumab group gained 15 or more letters from baseline visual acuity (ETDRS letter score). The duration of patient reported symptoms in the study eye ranged from 1 to 24 months (median 6 months). There was a weak correlation between the duration of symptoms and the change in visual acuity after bevacizumab (Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient, r = 0.08) and a modest negative correlation between the duration of symptoms and the visual acuity at baseline (r = -0.27).
Conclusions: :
This analysis suggests that the duration of patient reported symptoms in the eye with active neovascular AMD correlates poorly with outcomes of bevacizumab therapy.
Clinical Trial: :
www.ISRCTN.org ISRCTN83325075
Keywords: age-related macular degeneration • vascular endothelial growth factor • visual acuity