Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on neovascular age-related macular degeneration and response to delayed Anti-VEGF treatment

To investigate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the treatment course of neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nAMD) patients who received anti-VEGF injection therapy with real-life data. This retrospective study consisted of 116 eyes of 106 patients. Ophthalmic examination, assessment of best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA), optical coherence tomography (OCT) findings and data of last two visits before restrictions (V-2 and V-1) and the first visit (V0) after the release of national lockdown and subsequent visits (V1 and Vlast) were recorded. The lockdown period was determined by the time interval between March 11 and June 1, 2020. The injection interval before V-1 was significantly longer than the interval after V0 (2.56±0.9 vs. 2.14±0.8 months, P=0.02). While the median central macular thickness (CMT) was significantly increased at V0 compared to V-1 [274(132–711) vs. 238(136–628), P