Abstract:

Objective: The objective of this study is to assess the follow-up and treatment outcomes of eyes with wet age-related macular degeneration (wet AMD) for two years in a real-life clinical practice setting. Methods: In total, 37 eyes of 37 patients with wet AMD treated with 0.5 mg of intravitreal ranibizumab as needed and with at least 2 years of follow-up were retrospectively evaluated. Analyses included best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) and central foveal thickness measurements (CFT) by optical coherence tomography at baseline, sixth month, first year, and second year along with the number of injections and follow-up visits. Results: A total of 37 eyes of 37 patients (23 women and 14 men) with a mean age of 74.6±7.9 years were evaluated in this study. The mean BCVAs were 58.1±26.7 letters at baseline, 59.9±29.3 letters at the sixth month, 58.8±28.9 letters at the first year, and 59.2±28.5 letters at the second year. No statistically significant difference in BCVA was detected among the scores at baseline, sixth month, first year, and second year (p=0.214, 0.791, and 0.945, respectively). The CFTs averaged 340.6±89.7 μm at baseline, 316.9±87.8 μm at the sixth month, 330.2±95.8 μm at the first year, and 323.4±97.2 μm at the second year. Only the CFT at sixth month showed a statistically significant improvement over the baseline value (p=0.031). Conclusion: Considering the number of injections and follow-up visits, along with the course of outcomes in BCVA and CFT, our real-life outcomes remained far below the outcomes reported in pivotal randomized clinical trials. However, recent papers related to real-life performance in wet AMD show similar results to those of our study.

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