Prospective trial of Home OCT guided management of treatment experienced nAMD patients

Abstract

To evaluate the impact of home OCT guided patient management on treatment burden and visual outcomes. An interventional trial was conducted to compare frequency of treatment and visual acuity (VA) for the neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nAMD) patients before and during use of home OCT over a period of 6 months. Patient adherence to regular scanning was measured by the number of scans performed per week. The characteristics of episodes of fluid recurrence and classification of typical fluid volume trajectories was performed. 27 eyes (21 with diagnosis of nAMD and one converted during the study), of 15 pts. were monitored for 6 months, scanning at 6.2 times/week/eye and yielding 4,435 scans of which 91.2% were eligible for artificial intelligence-based fluid volume quantification. Total number of monitoring weeks prior and during the study were 1555 and 509. The mean (SD) number of weeks per injection before and during home OCT management were 8.0 (4.7) and 15.3 (8.5) (p=0.004) respectively. The mean (SD) VA change before and during home OCT based management was 3.5 (12.0) letters and 0.0 (9.5) letters (p=0.45) respectively, showing no significant impact on VA. For the first time, remote patient monitoring with a home OCT allowed personalized management of nAMD. This study showed significant reduction in treatment burden while maintaining stable VA.