The assessment of treatment efficacy in age related macular degeneration by evaluating the oxidative stress markers and OCT measurements.

Unlabelled: Age related macular degeneration (AMD) is the most frequent cause of blindness in the elderly.

Aim: To establish the role of oxidative stress in retinal structural lesions in AMD and to monitor the evolution of oxidative stress markers and OCT measurements before and after treatment.

Material And Methods: This is a case-control study that included 19 patients diagnosed with AMD and 40 matched healthy controls. According to the AREDS classification, patients were divided into mild, moderate and severe AMD and received treatment with antioxidants, neurotrophic drugs, intravitreal corticosteroids and/or anti-VEGF. We followed the patients by assessment of visual acuity, optical coherence tomography (OCT) and oxidative stress markers, such as superoxide-dismutase (SOD), thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS), and C-reactive protein (CRP) from blood samples before and after treatment.

Results: The OCT showed that the macular edema in patients with severe disease was significantly reduced after treatment, while the cases with normal retinal thickness increased significantly (p = 0.005). Comparing the mean values of SOD, TBARS and CRP in the two groups, we found that they were significantly higher in the study group compared to controls (p < 0.01), being higher in patients with severe disease. These values decreased post treatment, but they were still higher than in controls.

Conclusions: The present research supports the role of oxidative stress and inflammation in AMD and highlights the role of therapy directed against these risk factors. By monitoring the oxidative stress markers in the evolution of the disease, we showed that high values persist after treatment, thus supporting the idea that treatment should be followed for a long time.