[Outcome of photodynamic therapy for exudative age-related macular degeneration with good visual acuity].
OBJECTIVE
To evaluate visual outcome one year after photodynamic therapy (PDT) in patients with exudative age-related macular degeneration (AMD) showing good visual acuity (VA).


METHODS
One hundred and thirteen patients with AMD who received PDT therapy were recruited for this study. The study subjects were divided into two groups : those having a better visual acuity than 0.6 (n = 34), and those with VA worse than 0.5 (n = 79). All patients were examined by corrected visual acuity, fundus biomicroscopy, and optical coherence tomography (OCT) before, 1 month, 3 months, and 12 months after PDT.


RESULTS
Visual acuity at 12 months was either at baseline visual acuity or improved in 82% of the better vision group. Foveal retinal thickness was significantly reduced with PDT in both the better vision and the worse vision groups (p = 0.04, 0.008, respectively). The greatest linear dimension (GLD) was significantly associated with significant vision decline among baseline factors (p = 0.049)such as gender and age.


CONCLUSIONS
PDT is an effective adjunct for AMD patients even when they have good baseline vision. To perform PDT safely for AMD in patients with good vision, both larger GLD and retinal pigment epithelial detachment have to be considered as a risk factor.
Tsuchihashi
Takashi
T
Department of Ophthalmology, Saitama Medical School, Saitama-ken, Japan. tsuchi@saitama-med.ac.jp
Mori
Keisuke
K
Yoneya
Shin
S
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008268:Macular Degeneration / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000503:physiopathology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010778:Photochemotherapy; D014792:Visual Acuity