High-risk characteristics of fellow eyes of patients with unilateral neovascular age-related macular degeneration1☆,
Section snippets
Enrollment
Patients with unilateral neovascular AMD were identified by referral from ophthalmologists in New England (87% of cases) or by self-referral in response to advertisement (13% of cases). Patients were informed that they would receive a screening-baseline examination and, if eligible, be asked to return for re-examination every 6 months thereafter for at least 3 years. Eligibility criteria were a corrected Snellen visual acuity of 20/ 60 or better in the fellow eye with sufficiently clear media
Overall rate of having a choroidal neovascular membrane develop
Table 1 lists by follow-up visit the cumulative proportion of patients who failed (i.e., in whom a CNVM developed), the number of patients who failed, the number of patients who were censored for the next visit (i.e., those subsequently lost to follow-up), and the number of at-risk patients (i.e., those who had not failed at a previous visit or been lost to follow-up). The table reflects that 19 patients (15%) were lost to follow-up by the third year; this number includes 14 who died. Based on
Discussion
The annual rate of having a CNVM develop in the fellow eye of patients with unilateral neovascular AMD studied for up to 4.5 years was 8.8% in the current prospective study, slightly higher than that (6%) found in a previous prospective study that observed patients for 5 years.10 Both rates of conversion lie within the range of rates reported by several retrospective studies.4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
We identified two independent, age-adjusted baseline predictors of choroidal neovascularization in the
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Cited by (0)
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Supported by grants from the National Eye Institute (EY08398), the Foundation Fighting Blindness, Baltimore, Maryland, and the Massachusetts Lions Eye Research Fund, Inc.
- 1
The authors have no proprietary interest in the products described in this article.
- 2
Asher Weiner currently is affiliated with the Division of Ophthalmology, Columbia-St. Luke’s Medical Center, Cleveland, Ohio.