External beam radiation therapy not effective in patients with CNV in AMD

External beam radiation therapy does not appear to offer any benefit for patients with subfoveal choroidal neovascularization in age-related macular degeneration, according to British study.

Researchers at three hospitals in England and Northern Ireland randomly assigned 203 patients with CNV in AMD to external beam radiation therapy or observation. The radiotherapy group received a total dosage of 12 Gy of 6-mV photons in six fractions. Follow-up was out to 2 years.

At all time points, mean distance visual acuity was better in the treatment group than in the control group, but the difference did not reach statistical significance. At 2 years, fewer treated patients had severe distance acuity losses, but again the difference was not statistically significant. For near vision losses, a significant difference in favor of treatment existed at the 6-month follow-up, but there was no evidence of treatment benefit at 1 and 2 years.

The study is published in the August issue of Archives of Ophthalmology.