Purpose
To assess visual function and its effects on vision-targeted, health-related quality of life (QOL) of patients with neovascular
age-related macular degeneration (AMD) treated with photodynamic therapy (PDT) or full macular translocation (FMT).
Methods
Fifty patients with predominantly classic subfoveal choroidal neovascularisation (CNV) secondary to AMD were randomised to
PDT or FMT. To test the vision-targeted QOL, the 39-item National Eye Institute Visual Function Questionnaire (NEI-VFQ-25
plus supplement) was administered prior to and 1 year after therapy. The change of vision-related QOL at 1 year in comparison
to baseline was defined as primary end point.
Results
The vision-related subscales showed a stabilisation or even higher mean scores at 1 year in both treatment groups. A significant
improvement in the quality of the subject’s vision-related subscales was only observed after FMT correlating with a more frequent
increase in visual acuity. Comparing the results of the QOL scores after 1 year, the improvement of the subscale scores general
vision (p = 0.03), mental health (p = 0.02) and dependency (p = 0.03) were significantly higher in the FMT arm.
Conclusions
FMT and PDT can achieve a stabilisation in vision-related QOL, in which FMT was superior to the PDT after 1 year. The discrepancy
between the amount of patients with an increased visual acuity after FMT and a moderate improvement in QOL might be caused
by the onset of complications related to this surgical procedure. Besides visual acuity, the impact of therapy-related complications
has to be taken into consideration when evaluating new therapeutic concepts in exudative AMD.
Keywords Full macular translocation - Photodynamic therapy - Quality of life - Age-related macular degeneration
Matthias Lüke and Focke Ziemssen contributed equally to the manuscript. The authors have no competing interests related to
the manuscript.