BLOG: IRIS Registry Industry Report summarizes highlights of 2021 research
Before the 2022 American Academy of Ophthalmology meeting, Verana Health, the technology, data and analytics partner for the Academy’s IRIS Registry, shared its 2021 IRIS Registry Industry Report.
Among the highlights of the report are the large volume of cumulative data available in the IRIS Registry — data managed by Verana Health’s VeraQ data engine — through the end of 2021. In all, the report reflects more than 434 million billable visits with 72 million patients, including 5.6 million patients with non-exudative age-related macular degeneration, 1.5 million with diabetic macular edema, 10.6 million with cataract, 15.5 million with different forms of myopia and 14 million with glaucoma. Most importantly, we have up to 9 years of follow-up data available now, making it possible to better understand the impact of diseases and surgical and medical interventions over time.
Research highlights
For example, the non-exudative AMD data were recently used in the largest burden-of-disease retrospective study of geographic atrophy (GA). Researchers followed 69,000 patients over 2 years, providing insights into the rate of progression from extrafoveal to foveal GA. Researchers were also able to use IRIS Registry data to shed light on differences and similarities in outcomes and rates of endophthalmitis among patients undergoing immediate vs. delayed sequential bilateral cataract surgery. Summaries of these studies, along with 13 others utilizing IRIS Registry data that were published in 2021, are included in the report.
Glaucoma insights
The report also takes a deep dive into data on trends in glaucoma surgery from 2013 to 2021 in the IRIS Registry. During this 8-year period, glaucoma procedure volume climbed steadily, but the types of procedure changed considerably (Figure 1). Trabeculectomies, for example, peaked in 2015, with 14,600 procedures per year, then began to decline. By 2021, there were just 9,300 trabeculectomies annually, despite rising rates of glaucoma in the population. Over the same period, there was a dramatic increase in minimally invasive glaucoma surgery procedures, including the implantation of trabecular meshwork micro-bypass stents. Within a year of the approval of a dual-stent implant, the number of eyes receiving a second stent climbed from just a few dozen per year before approval to more than 20,000 per year in the past 3 years.
Thanks to advances in glaucoma surgical techniques and devices, procedures such as MIGS can now occur earlier in the disease course, slowing down or stabilizing glaucomatous progression. But as glaucoma surgical options continue to grow, the IRIS Registry can be a powerful source of longitudinal data to help answer questions about optimal patterns of care.
Verana Health
The 2021 IRIS Registry Industry Report also details the ways in which Verana Health is curating data from its VeraQ population health data engine to create high-quality Qdata modules. The first such module in ophthalmology, Qdata Glaucoma, is already being used to help explore patient-reported outcomes with MIGS in the PRO-MIGS study, conducted in partnership with the Academy, the FDA, the Center of Excellence in Regulatory Science and Innovation at UCSF-Stanford and the American Glaucoma Society. Qdata modules for anti-VEGF injections and other treatments and subspecialty areas within ophthalmology, including inherited retinal disease, neovascular and non-neovascular AMD, diabetic macular edema, cataract and more, are under development.
I’m excited about the continued effort to gather and analyze meaningful data on how patients experience care. As the IRIS Registry continues to grow through its provider footprint and linked data sources via VeraQ — including medical claims, pharmacy claims and diagnostic images — the opportunity to advance clinical research and patient outcomes is immense.
The full report is available at https://info.veranahealth.com/2021-irisreport.
References:
- Khan MA, et al. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci. 2021;62:166.
- Lacy M, et al. Ophthalmology. 2022;doi:10.1016/j.ophtha.2021.07.008.
Collapse
Read more about