VIDEO: Greatest challenge in geographic atrophy is ‘making the diagnosis’

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As an anterior segment cataract surgeon, the greatest problem with geographic atrophy is simply making the diagnosis. And geographic atrophy can be very easily missed by a non-retina specialist. We as anterior segment surgeons are really the gatekeepers to the diagnosis of geographic atrophy, because we see these patients routinely coming in for cataract surgery, and many doctors now perform OCTs on these patients. When you're looking at an OCT of a patient with geographic atrophy, we're looking for atrophic lesions that kind of start in the outer retina and progressively expand to cover the macular and the fovea, leading to irreversible loss of vision over time. What I think is really most important is that we as anterior segment surgeons need to be aware of the clinical findings on OCT of making the diagnosis of geographic atrophy. Because if we catch these patients early, we can actually treat them earlier and hopefully prevent the progression of the disease. Once we diagnose a patient who has a risk factor or actually has framed geographic atrophy, at that time, it becomes incumbent upon us to refer these patients to a retina specialist for the appropriate therapy.