Back to Journals » Clinical Ophthalmology » Volume 7

Five-year results of photodynamic therapy with verteporfin for Japanese patients with neovascular age-related macular degeneration

Authors Tsuchihashi T, Mori K, Ueyama K, Yoneya S

Received 1 February 2013

Accepted for publication 18 February 2013

Published 27 March 2013 Volume 2013:7 Pages 615—620

DOI https://doi.org/10.2147/OPTH.S43566

Checked for plagiarism Yes

Review by Single anonymous peer review

Peer reviewer comments 2



Takashi Tsuchihashi, Keisuke Mori, Kazuhiro Ueyama, Shin Yoneya

Department of Ophthalmology, Saitama Medical University, Iruma, Saitama, Japan

Purpose: To describe the treatment outcome of photodynamic therapy (PDT) in Japanese patients with age-related macular degeneration (AMD) followed for 5 years.
Patients and methods: We retrospectively reviewed clinical charts of 51 patients with AMD. Thirty-one eyes of typical AMD (tAMD) and 20 eyes of polypoidal choroidal vasculopathy (PCV) were evaluated.
Results: The mean logarithm of the minimum angle of resolution (logMAR) vision of all AMD patients was 0.807 at the baseline examination and 0.937 at the 5 year examination. Mean visual acuity letter score loss is similar between patients with tAMD (−7.25) and with PCV (−5.36) at the month 60 examination. The patients with lesions of classic choroidal neovascularization (CNV) had 10.0 letters loss, but the patients with lesions of occult CNV had only 1.43 letters loss. The number of retreatments peaked in year 1 and declined immediately for patients with tAMD, but patients with PCV had significantly more frequent retreatments in the years 3 and 4 than patients with tAMD (P = 1.48 × 10−2, 5.96 × 10−3, respectively).
Conclusion: Visual outcomes in patients with Japanese patients with AMD treated with PDT after 5-year follow up were worse than that in short-term follow up reported previously. In addition, the difference in visual prognosis between tAMD and PCV was not demonstrated after long-term follow-up.

Keywords: photodynamic therapy, age-related macular degeneration, polypoidal choroidal vasculopathy, visual outcomes

Creative Commons License © 2013 The Author(s). This work is published and licensed by Dove Medical Press Limited. The full terms of this license are available at https://www.dovepress.com/terms.php and incorporate the Creative Commons Attribution - Non Commercial (unported, v3.0) License. By accessing the work you hereby accept the Terms. Non-commercial uses of the work are permitted without any further permission from Dove Medical Press Limited, provided the work is properly attributed. For permission for commercial use of this work, please see paragraphs 4.2 and 5 of our Terms.