Promising study results presented in Age Related Macular Disease at ASRS

A team of retina specialists at the Doheny Eye Institute, University of Southern California, led by Srinivas Sadda, MD, conducting a study using have found that 76% of eyes in patients with AMD had peripheral abnormalities. The study used Optos’s ultra-widefield scanning technology The addition of auto-fluorescence capability to retinal scanning technologies is seen to aid the detection of AMD.

122 patients examined in this study were seen at the Doheny Eye Institute Retina Service from November 2009 to April 2010. Major disease groups studied included AMD, inflammatory disease, ocular tumours, central serous retinopathy, and retinal degenerations. The study was initiated to investigate the frequency of peripheral abnormalities and to begin to understand if there are characteristic peripheral patterns that may be useful in the diagnosis or management of retinal disease. This involved a retrospective analysis of the medical records of all patients referred to the Institute’s imaging unit for auto-fluorescence imaging, who also had additional ultra-widefield auto-fluorescence images obtained using Optos technology. Demographic data, including disease diagnosis, was also collected for analysis. Using the images, 174 eyes showed peripheral changes outside the central pole area of the retina, the area viewed using standard narrow-field, 30-degree field of view imaging technology.

This study follows the recently published results from the Reykjavik/Moorfields study and adds to the growing body of evidence of the importance of studying the periphery of the retina in the diagnosis and management of AMD.

Optos will now join Age-Related Eye Disease Study 2 (AREDS2), a nationwide American study conducted by the US National Eye Institute in some 4,200 subjects to determine methods to slow the progression of vision loss from AMD.

Commenting, Dr Sadda, the lead investigator, said: "The clinical significance of these findings requires further investigation but demonstrates the importance of understanding changes in the periphery of the retina. With this large, four thousand strong patient cohort, we will be able to investigate age-related changes in the periphery and their possible prognostic significance.”

Emily Y. Chew, MD, Deputy Director of the Division of Epidemiology and Clinical Applications at the National Eye Institute said: “This ancillary study will help us further phenotype our patients, particularly for our genetic studies.