Photo Credit: Pawel Kacperek

The following is a summary of “Impact of COVID-19 on aflibercept treatment of neovascular AMD in Sweden – data from the Swedish Macula Register,” published in the January 2024 issue of Ophthalmology by Wickman et al.

Researchers conducted a retrospective study to compare real-world aflibercept treatment outcomes and adherence to pandemic guidelines in patients with treatment-naïve neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nAMD) before and during the COVID-19 pandemic’s first year, up to 1-year follow-up.

They conducted a study involving 2915 treatment-naïve eyes with nAMD, utilizing Swedish Macula Register (SMR) data. Among these, 1597 eyes commenced treatment between July 1, 2018, and January 31, 2019 (pre-pandemic group), while 1318 eyes began treatment between February 1 and August 31, 2020 (pandemic group). Over a 1-year ± 2 months follow-up period, baseline characteristics, changes in visual acuity (VA) from baseline, number of injections, treatment regimen, appointment frequency, and the occurrence and duration of appointment delays. Baseline VA was compared to follow-up VA within each group using the Wilcoxon Signed-Rank Test. They compared outcomes between the two groups using statistical tests, including the Mann-Whitney U-test and Fisher’s exact test.

The results showed that baseline characteristics were comparable between the two groups. After 1 year, the percentage of eyes with available follow-up VA was 58% in the pre-pandemic group compared to 44% in the pandemic group. In the pre-pandemic group, VA significantly increased from 62.2 ± 14.1 letters to 64.8 ± 16.1 letters (n = 921; P<0.0001), while in the pandemic group, VA increased from 61.1 ± 15.8 to 64.9 ± 16.9 (n = 575; P<0.0001). No statistically significant difference was observed in the mean VA change between the groups (P=0.1734). But the pre-pandemic group encountered a significantly higher rate of delays than the pandemic group, with 45% versus 36% respectively (P<0.0001).

Investigators concluded that despite the reduced availability of VA measurements, clinics successfully maintained VA gains in pre-pandemic and pandemic patients by prioritizing injection visits during COVID-19.

Source: bmcophthalmol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12886-024-03326-8