Short-term outcomes of patients with neovascular exudative AMD: the effect of COVID-19 pandemic.

PURPOSE: To estimate the impact of delayed care during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on the outcomes of patients with neovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD) METHODS: Consecutive patients with diagnosis of neovascular AMD were consecutively enrolled between March 9, 2020, and June 12, 2020, (during and immediately after the Italian COVID-19 quarantine) During the inclusion (or pandemic) visit (V(0)), patients received a complete ophthalmologic evaluation, including optical coherence tomography (OCT) Best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) and OCT findings from the two preceding visits (V(-1) and V(-2)) were compared with data at V(0) RESULTS: One-hundred patients (112 eyes) were enrolled in this study The time interval between following visits was 110 7 ± 37 5 days within V(0) and V(-1) and 80 8 ± 39 7 days within V(-1) and V(-2), respectively (P < 0 0001) BCVA was statistically worse at the V(0) visit as compared with the immediately preceding (V(-1)) visit (0 50 ± 0 43 LogMAR and 0 45 ± 0 38 LogMAR at the V(0) and V(-1) visits, respectively;P = 0 046) On structural OCT, 91 out of 112 (81 2%) neovascular AMD eyes displayed the evidence of exudative disease activity at the V(0) visit, while 77 (68 7%) eyes exhibited signs of exudation at the V(-1) visit (P = 0 022) No differences in terms of BCVA and OCT findings were detected between the V(-1) and V(-2) visits In multiple regression analysis, the difference in BCVA between V(0) and V(-1) visits was significantly associated with the interval time within these two visits (P = 0 026) CONCLUSION: The COVID-19 pandemic-related postponement in patient care proved to be significantly associated with worse short-term outcomes in these patients