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AMD patients with low luminance vision garner twice the benefit of Lucentis treatment
MIAMI — Vision in dim light improves twice as much as vision in normal light with Lucentis therapy in patients with age-related macular degeneration, Ronald E. Frenkel, MD, FACS, told colleagues at Angiogenesis, Exudation, and Degeneration 2015.
Ronald E. Frenkel
“The gap between normal and dim vision at baseline may predict the patient’s response to treatment,” Frenkel said. “A smaller gap may be a manifestation of more mild retinal disease, and a wider gap portends poor vision gains.”
Working with the hypothesis that the gap between best corrected visual acuity and low luminance vision at baseline may predict a patient’s potential for improvement, Frenkel and colleagues pooled data from the HARBOR study for analysis, dividing patients into four quartiles.
Patients with low luminance vision gained an average of 15.4 letters, whereas patients’ standard vision, or best corrected visual acuity, increased by about half that, that is, 8.4 letters.
“We’re helping our patients significantly more than we realized,” Frenkel said. “This is a newly recognized, meaningful benefit of anti-VEGF therapy.”
Disclosure: Frenkel reports receiving research support from Aerpio, Alcon, Allergan, Bausch + Lomb, Genentech, GlaxoSmithKline, Lpath, Pfizer, Regeneron and Rigel.