RECENT PUBLICATIONS
Dr. Frenkel’s research was published in the British Journal of Ophthalmology.
Using a simple gray filter to stress patients’ eyes, ophthalmologists are able to predict visual acuity change during anti-vascular endothelial growth factor A (anti-VEGF) therapy for wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD), according to a new study.
“Now we are able to tell patients with a high degree of accuracy how they will do with anti-VEGF injections,” Dr. Ronald E.P. Frenkel, who led the study, told Reuters Health by phone. “The method is so elegant and it has incredible predictability. We couldn’t tell patients before what to expect.”
He noted that previously, the test had proved helpful in patients with dry AMD, but this is the first time anyone has tested it in patients with wet AMD.
Dr. Frenkel, of Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, Miami, and colleagues conducted the HARBOR trial, a two-year, phase 3 randomized trial of intravitreal ranibizumab (Lucentis) 0.5 or 2.0 mg monthly or as needed in wet AMD patients. A total of 1,084 patients were enrolled in the trial. Their mean age was 78.7 years and about 60 percent were women. In a Nov. 5 online paper in the British Journal of Ophthalmology, Dr. Frenkel and colleagues report change in best corrected visual acuity (BCVA) under optimal illumination over the course of the two-year study. The researchers also evaluated low-luminance visual acuity (LLVA).
Click here to view the Abstract in the British Journal of Ophthalmology.