A recent study has found that associations between morphological changes and visual acuity (VA) persist in age-related macular degeneration (AMD) patients, with significant decline in acuities between two and five years after anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (anti-VEGF) treatment.

Researchers reported the findings from a five-year follow-up of 523 participants from the Comparison of Age-related Macular Degeneration Treatments Trials, which randomly assigned ranibizumab or bevacizumab to eyes with AMD-associated choroidal neovascularization (CNV).

The study identified new foveal scar, CNV, geographic atrophy (GA), intraretinal fluid, subretinal hyper-reflective material and retinal thinning, development or worsening of foveal GA and increased lesion size as important contributors to VA in the period after anti-VEGF therapy.

However, at five years, 38% of eyes had subretinal fluid and 36% had sub-retinal pigment epithelium fluid, both of which are characteristic of GA.

Researchers conclude that there is still a significant need to develop therapies that can address these adverse pathological features and morphological changes in AMD individuals.