Abstract
Purpose :
Exudative AMD, a frequent disease related to the population aging, is one of the leading causes of legal blindness and represents today a major public health problem. In the literature few long-term results (> 5 years) are available for this type of population. We aimed to present the results of a population of patients treated in real life for 5 years.
Methods :
In this retrospective, monocentric registry, patients with exudative AMD treated in real life with intravitreal injections of anti-VEGF (Ranibizumab) were followed by PRN regimen with monthly control visits (CV). The primary objective was to study changes in visual acuity (VA) over time (initial VA, and VA at: 6, 12, 18, 24, 30, 36, 42, 48 months). The secondary objective was to assess whether the number of CV and Injection visits (IV) throughout follow-up were good predictor of VA evolution over time.
Results :
The studied population (109 patients and 131 eyes) had a usual female prevalence (64%) and a mean age of 78.4 ± 7.7 years.
VA significantly increased during the first 6 months, with a delta ETDRS of 4.2 ± 15.2 letters (p = 0.0288). VA declined thereafter until the end of the follow-up, but without any statistical significance between the different controls (table 1).
The mean number of CV and IV decreased all along the follow-up and this decrease was significant most of the time (table 2).
Conclusions :
Anti-VEGFs IVTs represent a reliable treatment for exudative AMD, even in the long term (at 5 years). PRN regimen with regular follow-up and treatment is necessary to stabilize patients' AV over time. The follow-up should be adapted by the ophthalmologist to the progress of each patient, in order to avoid over or under treatment, which, in both cases, could deleterious to the final result.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2017 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Baltimore, MD, May 7-11, 2017.