Australia is now leading the world in protecting older people from the debilitating impacts of wet age-related macular degeneration, the leading cause of severe vision loss and blindness in Australia, according to data presented by Professor Mark Gillies at the 2015 Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Ophthalmologists (RANZCO) Congress.
Professor Mark Gillies is the lead investigator of the Fight Retinal Blindness! Registry at the Save Sight Institute in Sydney. He said the research shows that Australia achieves significantly better long-term treatment outcomes than Europe or the United States in enabling older Australians with the disease to continue reading and driving. Over 1,000 eyes that had been treated for five to seven years were studied.
The average Australian patient had vision that was as good as or better than their starting vision for six years, compared with 4 years for the United States and two years for Europe. 40 per cent of Australian patients still had driving vision after seven years of treatment compared with only 23 per cent for the United States.
Professor Gillies said “this is an outstanding result as the research shows that the use of carefully managed anti-VEGF injections has enabled 40 per cent of Australian patients with wet macular degeneration to still have driving vision after seven years of treatment compared with just 23 per cent for the United States.”
