Visual outcomes in relation to time to treatment in neovascular age-related XXXX .

@entity1 @entity6 @entity7 @entity13785 @entity735 @entity1020
PURPOSE: To study the relation between the interval from diagnosis to initiation of intravitreal injection therapy and visual outcome in neovascular age-related @entity1020 (nAMD) and to report changes over time in @entity735 status. METHODS: Retrospective chart review. The study included 1185 eyes in 1099 @entity1 who began @entity7 inhibitor treatment for nAMD during four separate periods in 2007, 2009, 2011 and 2012 using a fixed loading-dose regimen of three ranibizumab injections. RESULTS: Mean best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) at presentation remained within the range 0.23-0.24 Snellen and the median @entity1 age within 79-80  years, whereas BCVA at first visit after the third injection increased from 0.24 to 0.31 (p  <  0.0001) in concert with a shift in preferred practice from separate-day injection to same-day injection. This led to a reduction in the median time to treatment from 16  days to 1  day. The proportion of @entity1 with @entity735 BCVA 0.05 or worse at presentation with newly diagnosed wet @entity13785 in the incident eye decreased from 38% to 22% (p  <  0.0018). The proportion of bilaterally treated @entity1 increased during the study period. CONCLUSION: In this study, 2-week-earlier injection was associated with the equivalent of a 5-Early Treatment @entity6 Study letter-gain in mean visual acuity at 3  months after presentation. The difference is larger than expected from the 2-week-longer duration of disease at the study end-point. The study supports that early diagnosis and treatment of nAMD is of value for functional outcomes.
