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CATT at 5 years: Visual acuity gains not maintained
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SAN FRANCISCO — Regardless of treatment drug, either bevacizumab or ranibizumab, visual acuity gains seen in the first 2 years of the CATT study were not maintained at year 5, study chair Daniel F. Martin, MD, reported here.
Speaking at the American Society of Retina Specialists annual meeting, Martin said, “Between year 2 and year 5, there was a mean 11-letter decrease, such that at 5 years, the average patient was three letters worse than they were at baseline.”
In the National Eye Institute-funded follow-up study, CATT patients who were alive at the end of the initial 2-year clinical trial were invited to return for a follow-up visit that included assessment of visual acuity, a review of records, and imaging studies with color fundus photographs, fluorescein angiography and SD-OCT. Data were available for 647 patients (71% of those eligible), mean age was 83 years, and follow-up ranged from 4.3 years to 7.1 years.
“This was an elderly population,” Martin said. “Between the end of CATT and 3-1/2 years later – 5.5 years – over 200 of them had died.”
Another approximately 200 patients were unable to participate for age-related reasons, such as moving to an assisted living facility. Of those who could participate, 91% (591 patients) were continuing their care at a CATT center, although only 25% of patients continued treatment exclusively with their CATT-assigned drug, making comparisons between the two drugs irrelevant in this follow-up.
“The thrust of this was no longer a comparison of Lucentis to Avastin, monthly vs. PRN,” Martin said. “The primary interest here was to assess the global effect of anti-VEGF therapy on 5-year outcomes, specifically visual acuity and anatomical results.”
Reference:
Martin DF. 5-Year outcomes after initiating anti-VEGF therapy for neovascular AMD in the Comparison of AMD Treatments Trials (CATT). Presented at: American Society of Retina Specialists 34th Annual Meeting, Aug. 9-14, 2016; San Francisco, Calif.
Disclosure: Martin reports no relevant financial interests.