Abstract
Purpose :
Exudative age related macular degeneration (EAMD) and cancer are common disease of the elderly and there are patients with cancer on treatment for EAMD.
Both these diseases are dependent on vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) for progression. Systemic VEGF production is required and augmented in cancer. It is possible that this increased production could augment EAMD and also lead to poor response to anti VEGF agents.
There is paucity in the literature documenting this association
Methods :
This was a descriptive study of consecutive patients presenting with EAMD and cancer or patients while on treatment for EAMD who developed cancer between 2012 and 2015, at the Canberra Retina Clinic, Canberra, Australia.
EAMD was confirmed with standard imaging studies that included fluorescein angiography and spectral domain ocular coherence tomography. The cancer type, stage, treatment and temporal relation to wet AMD presentation were obtained from case record.
Poor response to anti VEGF agents in EAMD was defined as persistence of sub-retinal and intra-retinal fluid on a monthly treatment schedule.
Results :
Six patients with wet AMD and co existent cancer was identified. Two patients had bilateral wet AMD. The male female distribution was 50%. The patient demographic data, imaging data, cancer type and treatment and EAMD subtype and anti VEGF agent used are detailed in table 1.
Conclusions :
Active cancer is associated with a poor response to anti VEGF agents in this group of patients with exudative age related macular degeneration. This results require further investigation.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2017 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Baltimore, MD, May 7-11, 2017.