Abstract
Purpose :
Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of blindness in developed countries. Although simultaneous bilateral neovascular AMD (nAMD) is rare, it is quite common for one eye to develop nAMD followed by the other eye. (Figure 1) We evaluated the patients with unilateral nAMD at presentation and analyzed the incidence and risk factors of fellow eye progressing to nAMD.
Methods :
This study reviewed 593 unilateral nAMD patients with a minimum of five years of follow-up. The demographic data, visual acuity, rate of fellow eye nAMD conversion, and number of anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (anti-VEGF) injections in the primary eye were evaluated. Also, the nAMD converted fellow eyes were divided into two groups based on the time of conversion (less and more than two years from the first injection in the primary eye). Based on types of the data, T-test, Chi-square, and Mann-Whitney U test were used to analyze.
Results :
The total cases were 593 patients, and in all 248 eyes (41.82%) converted to nAMD in the mean interval of 34.92±30.62 months. The males exhibited a predisposition to wet conversion 5.67 years earlier than their female counterparts (P-value: 0.181). In all the converted fellow eyes, the mean age was 2.3 years higher at presentation in group who converted within two years of follow-up (P-value: 0.035). There was a positive correlation between the number of intravitreal anti-VEGF injections in the primary eye and the meantime wet conversion in all nAMD converted fellow eyes (P-value: <0.001). (Table 1)
Conclusions :
This retrospective cohort analysis provides the incidence rate, risk factors, and protective factors of fellow eye neovascular conversion in unilateral nAMD patients. We showed that higher age may predispose the fellow eyes to progress to nAMD. Also, the intravitreal anti-VEGF injections in the primary eyes may have protective effect of nAMD conversion of fellow eyes.
This abstract was presented at the 2024 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Seattle, WA, May 5-9, 2024.