Factors determining the compliance of patients receiving anti-VEGF therapy for macular diseases with long-term follow-up in real-life practice

Purpose: to identify statistically significant factors that determine adherence to long-term follow-up on the part of patients receiving anti-VEGF therapy for macular diseases.

Material and methods. A retrospective analysis was performed on 247 patients (153 women, 94 men) aged 24 to 92 years treated with anti-VEGF for “wet” age-related macular degeneration (n = 164), diabetic macular edema (n = 18), macular edema due to retinal vein occlusion (n = 35) and myopic choroidal neovascularization (n = 30). Demographic data and treatment results were statistically analyzed with the STATISTICA 13.3 program (normal conditions for variables, non-parametric and parametric criteria were determined).

Results. Follow-up duration was shown to depend on gender (women are more committed to long-term treatment, p < 0.05), diagnosis (the longest follow-up related to myopic choroidal neovascularization patients), initial and final visual acuity. The comparison of subgroups of patients with the longest (over 30 months, n = 56) and shortest (till 12 months, n = 92) follow-up showed that prolonged monitoring corresponds to higher values of the initial (p < 0.01) and final (p < 0.05) visual acuity, as well as a lower average number of injections over the entire follow-up (p < 0.001) and a younger age of patients (p = 0.02).

Conclusion. The follow-up duration depends on gender and age, the intensity of treatment, as well as on the initial and final visual acuity at a significance level of ˂ 0.05. Also, the follow-up duration depends on the particular diagnosis. An indicator clearly reflecting the severity of the burden of treatment is proposed: the coefficient of therapy intensity which is inversely related to the patient’s adherence to therapy.

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