Abstract
Purpose :
To assess visual function among patients diagnosed with age-related macular degeneration (AMD) by category of AMD and controls being seen for cataract surgery without AMD.
Methods :
Cross-sectional cohort study of AMD patients and controls enrolled in an AMD registry at the University of Colorado. Patients completed the National Eye Institute Visual Functioning Questionnaire-25 (NEI VFQ-25) at time of study enrollment. Patients with AMD were categorized into early/intermediate AMD and three groups of advanced AMD: 1) neovascular AMD (NVAMD), 2) geographic atrophy (GA), and 3) NVAMD in one eye and any stage dry AMD in the other (Both). Mean composite scores and scores for 12 different subscales are based on a 100-point scale with the lowest and highest possible scores set at 0 and 100, respectively. Scores for the three advanced AMD groups were compared to early/intermediate AMD and controls using general linear modeling with p-values <0.01 considered statistically significant.
Results :
A total of 594 AMD patients (113 NVAMD, 95 GA, 179 Both, and 207 early/intermediate dry patients) and 306 controls patients were included in the analysis. Composite scores were highest among early/intermediate dry patients (90.2), followed by controls (83.1), patients diagnosed with both (81.7), GA (77.0) and NVAMD had the lowest overall mean (72.1). In general, this pattern persisted across subscales as well (Table 1). Subscale scores ranged from a low of 42.0 for driving among NVAMD patients to a high of 98.3 for social functioning among early/intermediate dry patients. Typically, patients with early/intermediate AMD and controls had higher scores compared to the three advanced AMD groups, particularly the NVAMD and GA groups. The largest differences were seen in subscales of mental health, role limitations, dependency, and driving. Lower discrepancies were observed in subscales of general health, general vision, social functioning, color vision, and peripheral vision.
Conclusions :
We found composite score differences of 13 and 18 points between early/intermediate AMD compared to GA and NVAMD, respectively. These cross-sectional findings are similar to a study of prospective changes as patients’ progress from early to late AMD. The group of patients with both dry AMD and NVAMD had scores in between the early and late AMD groups.
This abstract was presented at the 2019 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Vancouver, Canada, April 28 - May 2, 2019.