Photodynamic therapy of subfoveal choroidal neovascularization in high myopia in a clinical setting: Visual outcome in relation to age at treatment

PURPOSE: To evaluatethe visual outcome of patients with myopic subfoveal choroidal neovascularization (CNV) given photodynamic therapy (PDT) in a clinical setting, and to identify potential relation between the visual outcome and the age at treatment. DESIGN: Interventional case series. METHODS: Retrospective comparative study. SETTING: Outpatient ophthalmology clinic. PATIENTS: Twenty-nine consecutive patients (30 eyes) with subfoveal CNV caused by pathologic myopia who were treated with verteporfin PDT from January 2000 to May 2003. INTERVENTION: All the patients received verteporfin PDT and were followed clinically and with fluorescein angiography (FA). Review of the medical records and angiograms was performed. Patients were divided into two groups by age, using the median age (60 years) as the cutoff. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Visual acuity (VA) at the end of follow,up in the older patient group compared with the younger-patient group. RESULTS: The mean age was 63.1 years. Mean follow-up was 11.5 months. Patients received a mean of 3.48 treatments. Mean VA improved in the younger group from 0.63 to 0.39 logMAR (P = .02, paired t test) and deteriorated in the older group from 0.71 to 0.99 logMAR (P = .03, paired t test). In the whole cohort, 33% of eyes lost 3 or more lines of Snellen best-corrected VA; in the older age group, 50% of eyes lost 3 or more lines, whereas in the younger age group, only 8% of eyes did so (P = .024, Fisher's exact test). CONCLUSIONS: In our consecutive case series, visual prognosis of myopic CNV after PDT was found to be influenced by age at treatment. (C) 2004 by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.