Visual outcomes in relation to time to treatment in neovascular age-related macular degeneration

Abstract

The article by Rasmussen et al.(2015) established that visual out-come improved markedly with earlierinjections in their study group ofpatients treated with anti-angiogenicsdrugs for neovascular age-relatedmacular degeneration (nAMD). Theimprovement in visual outcome wasthe equivalent of five Early TreatmentDiabetic Retinopathy Study protocol(ETDRS) letters for a shortening of amedian delay from 2 weeks in the firstcohort (2007) to 1 day in the lastcohort (2012) spread over a 6-yearperiod, despite unchanged age andbaseline best corrected visual acuity(BCVA). The authors explanationabout the findings were that the fiveETDRS letters gained in their cohortsby injecting on the day of diagnosisrather than 2 weeks later exceed theeffect of the longer untreated period,and it suggests that the response char-acteristics of the choridal neovascular-ization (CNV) lesion may changewithin the first weeks after diagnosis.