Abstract
Purpose: :
To evaluate changes in visual acuity, fixation stability, and preferred retinal locus (PRL) location in the treated and untreated eye of patients with neovascular age-related macular degeneration treated with Ranibizumab.
Methods: :
Binocular and monocular best-corrected distance visual acuity was measured with the ETDRS test, and fixation stability and PRL location recorded with the MP-1 microperimeter prior to and after a treatment course of three monthly injections of Ranibizumab (N = 13 patients).
Results: :
For the treated eye, we found significant improvements in visual acuity (p = 0.006) which correlated significantly (p = 0.02) with improvements in fixation stability. Better fixation stability was also correlated with a smaller change in PRL location (p = 0.014).For the untreated eye, on the other hand, there were no significant changes in acuity (p > 0.05), but 61.54 % of the patients exhibited poorer fixation stability after treatment. The initial difference in fixation stability between the treated and the untreated eyes was correlated with the decrement in fixation stability (p = 0.007) and change in PRL location of the untreated eye (p = 0.049).After treatment, there was a significant correlation between the fixation stability of the treated and untreated eye (p = 0.034) and binocular acuity correlated with the acuity and fixation stability of the treated eye (p = 0.017 and p = 0.004, respectively) and with the fixation stability of the untreated eye (p = 0.001).
Conclusions: :
For the treated eye, improvements in visual acuity after treatment with Ranibizumab are accompanied by improvements in ocular motor control. The changes in ocular motor control of both eyes can be understood in terms of the adaptations required by the binocular changes in vision resulting from treatment.
Keywords: ocular motor control • age-related macular degeneration • eye movements