Optical coherence tomography for the monitoring of neovascular age-related macular degeneration: a systematic review.

Topic: To compare the accuracy of optical coherence tomography (OCT) with alternative tests for monitoring neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nAMD) and detecting disease activity among eyes previously treated for this condition.

Clinical Relevance: Traditionally, fundus fluorescein angiography (FFA) has been considered the reference standard to detect nAMD activity, but FFA is costly and invasive. Replacement of FFA by OCT can be justified if there is a substantial agreement between tests.

Pre-validation methods for developing a patient reported outcome instrument.

Background: Measures that reflect patients' assessment of their health are of increasing importance as outcome measures in randomised controlled trials. The methodological approach used in the pre-validation development of new instruments (item generation, item reduction and question formatting) should be robust and transparent. The totality of the content of existing PRO instruments for a specific condition provides a valuable resource (pool of items) that can be utilised to develop new instruments.