Geographic atrophy causes substantial disease burden in macular degeneration
NEW YORK — A retrospective study of more than 36,000 patients showed that geographic atrophy causes substantial disease burden, according to a speaker here.
“Longer-term outcomes regarding the progression of geographic atrophy for patients with macular degeneration are generally lacking,” Ehsan Rahimy, MD, said at the American Society of Retina Specialists annual meeting.
Rahimy and colleagues analyzed data from 36,817 patients with geographic atrophy who had 3 or more years of follow-up and excluded patients with active or a history of choroidal neovascularization, adults younger than 50 years or older than 110 years, patients with no recorded birth sex, patients with missing baseline visual acuity, and patients with a history of any retinal condition aside from geographic atrophy.
Within 1 year of follow-up, almost one-fifth of eyes progressed to severe blindness. Additionally, within 2 years, the rate of severe blindness increased to more than one-quarter of eyes, and within 3 years, more than one-third of eyes.
The eyes with geographic atrophy lost significant vision over 3 years, and eyes with good vision at baseline lost more letters compared with eyes with poor vision.
“Patients with GA are still at risk of being lost to follow-up, as evidenced by more than 42,000 patients being excluded from this analysis with less than 3 years of follow-up,” Rahimy said.
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Rahimy E, et al. Retrospective real-world analysis of patients with geographic atrophy (GA) secondary to age-related macular degeneration followed up for 3 years. Presented at: American Society of Retina Specialists annual meeting; July 13-16, 2022; New York.
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