Impact of optical coherence tomography angiography on the non-invasive diagnosis of neovascular age-related macular degeneration.

Purpose: To investigate the changes in imaging tool practice for the diagnosis of neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nAMD).

Methods: Retrospective analysis of consecutive patients diagnosed with nAMD in a tertiary care center, over a 6-month period in 2014, 2016, and 2018. Patient demographics were compared. Imaging modalities used in 2014 were fundus photography, fluorescein angiography (FA), and structural spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT), while OCT-angiography (OCT-A) was available from 2015. Imaging tools used in our practice were compared in the 3 cohorts.

Results: The 3 cohorts included 163, 99, and 167 patients, respectively. There was no difference in age or gender (mean age 81.7 years). OCT-A images were analyzable in 60.5% and 89.7% of patients respectively in 2016 and in 2018. In the 3 cohorts, all patients were imaged with fundus photography and structural OCT. FA was performed in 70.2, 28.8, and 22.1% of patients, respectively.

Conclusion: This study showed a shift in practice of imaging tools used for the diagnosis of nAMD, non-invasive tools being increasingly used as the first-line imaging, and FA as the second-line imaging.