Evolution of macular atrophy in eyes with neovascular age-related macular degeneration compared to fellow non-neovascular eyes

Purpose Τo evaluate the evolution of macular atrophy (MA) in patients with neovascular AMD (nAMD), compared with their fellow eyes exhibiting dry AMD (dAMD). Methods This retrospective study included 124 patients from three centers treated with anti-VEGF in their nAMD eye and having dAMD in the fellow eye. Patients without MA at baseline were analyzed to study the time to first MA development. Synchronous and unsynchronous time course of MA was also studied. MA was evaluated using near-infrared images, while all available optical coherence tomography (OCT) images were used to confirm the criteria proposed by the Classification of Atrophy Meetings group for complete MA. Results MA first detection in nAMD eyes increased significantly from year 2 to 6 compared to dAMD eyes. Over the study’s follow-up, 45.1% of nAMD-E developed MA, compared to 16.5% of fellow eyes ( p