Purpose: To evaluate the relative impact of best and worst eye on vision- related quality of life in patients suffering from age- related macular degeneration (AMD). Design: Quality of life and visual acuity data were collected at baseline during a randomized clinical trial. Methods: setting: Multicenter (11 centers), international study. patients: One hundred fourteen patients with a diagnosis of exudative AMD and primary or recurrent subfoveal neovascular membrane (greatest linear dimension of lesion ≤ 5400 μ m; ≥ 50% of the total lesion was choroidal neovascularization (CNV); classic component of the total CNV ≥ 1.0 mm2). All patients were over age50 years, of any race, either sex. intervention or observation procedure: NEI- VFQ- 39 questionnaire administered to patients at home by trained telephone interviewers. main outcome measures: ETDRS visual acuity (VA) was measured in both eyes separately. Vision- related quality of life (QoL) was assessed using the NEI- VFQ- 39. An analysis of variance was performed on the NEI- VFQ scores, including best eye VA (VA > 20/40 vs VA ≤ 20/40), worst eye VA (VA > 20/200 vs VA ≤ 20/200), and the interaction between the two as independent variables. Results: Best eye VA was 0.34 on average, with VA > 20/40 in 43.0% of patients. Worst eye VA was 0.85 on average, with VA > 20/200 in 32.5% of patients. VA was not linked to general health and ocular pain scores. General Vision, Near Activities, Distance Vision, Driving, Mental Health, Role Difficulties, Dependency, Peripheral Vision, and the Global NEI- VFQ scores were affected by both best eye VA and worst eye VA. Conclusion: In the study sample, worst eye VA (≤ 20/200) and best eye VA (≤ 20/40) contributed independently to vision- related QoL. These results suggest that preserving a minimal visual acuity in the worst eye may contribute to vision- related quality of life.
展开▼
