Abstract
Purpose :
Wet-AMD is the leading cause of central blindness in the elderly. With a rising 40,000 new cases per year (UK) recurrence monitoring has imposed a significant burden on resources in any eye department.
The purpose of this study is to determine pattern of recurrence in stable wet-AMD patients (equals no further treatment for >12 months) with no other ocular comorbidities who were discharged from care.
Methods :
Prospective pilot study on all treated and stable wet-AMD patients discharged from our tertiary referral centre between 2012May and 2013May. All discharged patients were advised self-monitoring method and given a “rapid access AMD clinic card with contact number” to be rebooked directly into the clinic if needed.
Results :
Thirty-four discharged patients were identified: mean age 79±10.8; mean number of anti-VEGF injections before discharge 5.8±3. Twenty-one patients (61.8%) did not re-contact AMD clinic; 13 patients (38.2%) re-attended in 6 to 37 months (average 17 months). Only one patient (2.9%) was treated for same eye recurrence of wet-AMD as well as fellow eye new disease 7 months after discharge, visual acuity was 6/6 in either eye at discharge and on return to the clinic. Six patients (17.6%) were treated for fellow eye new disease.
Conclusions :
Our results demonstrate that wet-AMD recurrence in stable treated eyes is significantly less than developing fellow eye new disease. It also shows that treated stable wet-AMD patients with no other ocular comorbidities can be safely discharged with appropriate advice on self-monitoring and clinic contact to accommodate all new patients to provide timely and effective management.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2016 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Seattle, Wash., May 1-5, 2016.