AMD not affected by vitreomacular adhesion

Vitreomacular adhesion (VMA) does not affect the development of exudative age-related macula degeneration, according to the results of a 4-year longitudinal study in Retina.

The prospective, longitudinal investigation, led by Dr Sebastian Waldstein, Department of Ophthalmology, Medical University of Vienna, Austria, included 49 patients with AMD who underwent optical coherence tomography (OCT) and fluorescein angiography (FA) every three months for four years.

Time-domain and spectral-domain OCT were used to assess vitreomacula adhesion. OCT and FA were also used to determine development of choroidal neovascularization (CNV). CNV incidences were compared in all patients, through the presence or absence of VMA.

Of the patients studied, nine presented with VMA at baseline and 18 patients experienced exudative changes during the observation period. Development of CNV was present in 33% of patients with pre-existing VMA and 38% in patients without VMA.

In VMA patients the mean interval from baseline to disease progression was 20 ± 19 months and 22 ± 13 months in patients without VMA. Rate of CNV development and time to disease progression were not significantly different between the groups.