Long-term visual outcomes of intravitreal ranibizumab treatment for wet age-related macular degeneration and effect on blindness rates in south-east Scotland.

Aims: To evaluate patient visual acuity outcomes and blindness rates attributable to wet AMD with a potential 5-year follow-up from intravitreal ranibizumab treatment (IVTR) in south-east Scotland.

Methods: Data was analysed from 104 eyes of 96 patients who initiated treatment prior to September 2008. The main outcome measures were LogMAR visual acuity, number of clinic visits and the number of injections. Annual blind registration data in south-east Scotland were analysed using blind certifications recorded by the Royal National Institute of Blind People.

Results: Patients had a mean clinical follow-up of 4 years and 1 month and a mean loss of 5.5 letters over the study period. Of the treated eyes 9.6% gained ≥ 15 letters whilst 24.0% lost ≥ 15 letters during this period. An average of 9.56 injections were administered per patient. The age-sex standardised incidence of legal blindness attributable to wet AMD in south-east Scotland peaked at 9.1 cases per 100,000 of the population in 2006 in either eye. Following the introduction of IVTR there were annual decreases in the incidence of blindness attributable to AMD falling to a trough of 4.8 cases per 100,000 of the population in 2011.

Conclusions: This study demonstrates that the majority of patients in a south-east Scotland maintain their vision following IVTR in wet AMD in the real-world setting. Our study also suggests that the introduction of IVTR has had population wide benefits in reducing the blindness attributable to wet AMD in the south-east Scotland population.