Ricerc@Sapienza

Background. Untreated age-related macular degeneration (AMD) complicated by choroidal neovascularization (CNV) is one of the most common causes of blindness among people >50 years old. Neovascular AMD involves multiple angiogenic agents to develop choroidal anomalous blood vessels disrupting the anatomy and the function of retinal tissue. Current main treatment for neovascular AMD is the intravitreal injection of anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (anti-VEGF) agents, which have been resulted effective at reducing retinal fluid and regressing the new vessels.
Rare side effects of intravitreal injection are conjunctival hyperemia, eye pain and bleeding in the point of injection, detachment of the retinal pigmented epithelium (RPE), cataract, increase in intraocular pressure (IOP) and vitreous detachment. Rarely, major adverse events like hypersensitivity reactions, endophthalmitis, retinal detachment, uveitis and hypopyon can affect patients after an anti-VEGF injection.
More than AMD, glaucoma (GL) is the world's leading cause of irreversible blindness. Evidences show that optic disc perfusion is reduced in GL and the injection of anti-VEGF agents in patients with GL and CNV could worsen this feature.
Purpose. The present study aims to evaluate by angio-OCT the differences in optic nerve fibers and macular thickness between patients with CNV and GL, with CNV, with GL and healthy patients. The study also intends to evaluate how anti-VEGF treatment affects these parameters, in order to investigate the possible side effects of the intravitreal injection of anti-VEGF agents in glaucomatous patients.
Design. Observational, prospective study.
Methods. 40 patients (10 with GL and CNV, 10 with CNV, 10 with GL, 10 healthy controls) will undergo a complete ophthalmological evaluation, incuding angio-OCT of macula and optic disc.
Results. Optic nerve fibers thickness will be evaluated in all patients to find differences between the groups and after the treatment.