Week in review: AMD after antibiotic use, award for OCT inventors, quality of life with glaucoma

A weekly roundup of ophthalmic news from around the web.

AMD could be a side effect of antibiotic treatment. Significant associations between new-onset ICD code diagnoses of AMD and treatment with certain classes of antibiotics were found in a case-control study of more than 312,000 senior patients with new-onset age-related macular degeneration (AMD) included in a US health claims database. Exposure to aminoglycosides and quinolones increased the odds of developing both dry and wet AMD, and exposure to broad-spectrum antibiotics was more likely to cause new-onset AMD than exposure to narrow-spectrum antibiotics. The odds of AMD onset increased with longer courses of treatment and higher prescription numbers. The authors recommend conducting additional population-level studies of more databases to confirm these findings. Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science

The Lasker Award goes to the inventors of OCT. The 2023 Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award was given to Dr. James Fujimoto, Mr. Eric Swanson, and Dr. David Huang for “the invention of optical coherence tomography (OCT), a technology that revolutionized ophthalmology—allowing rapid detection of diseases of the retina that impair vision,” said the Lasker Foundation in a statement announcing the winners. In 1991, the trio first published results from their studies of interferometry, describing how they were able to use it to uncover the microscopic structure of a living retina for the first time. Dr. Fujimoto, the Elihu Thomson Professor in Electrical Engineering and principal investigator in the Research Laboratory of Electronics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, noted “In medicine, as well as in many other fields, there is increasing use of technologies, including advanced hardware and analysis technologies… Modern medicine can draw upon these technologies to advance patient care and reduce mortality.” Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Lasker Foundation

In older people, glaucoma affects vision-related quality of life but not general quality of life. This was the finding of an analysis of data from a population of 70-year-olds (n = 1129) enrolled in a lifelong cohort study in Gothenburg, Sweden. Participants, 4.3% of whom had self-reported glaucoma, provided information about vision-related quality of life (VRQOL) via the Swedish version of the National Eye Institute Visual Functioning Questionnaire-25; other questionnaires measured general quality of life (QOL). While those with self-reported glaucoma had poorer VRQOL, particularly in terms of ocular pain and activity limitation, than those without glaucoma, the 2 groups had similar general QOL scores. Income, lifestyle habits, and socioeconomic status were also similar in the glaucoma and non-glaucoma groups. Acta Ophthalmologica

Delays in nAMD care during the COVID-19 pandemic affected some—but not all—outcomes. No significant effect in visual outcomes was seen among patients with neovascular AMD (nAMD) who delayed care during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to results from an observational study. Investigators reviewed records from 116 patients (163 eyes) seen at Northwestern University’s ophthalmology department who had at least 1 canceled, rescheduled, or no-show retina-related appointment during the department’s initial mandatory lockdown period. In multivariate analyses, the rate of visual acuity loss was similar between the pre- and post-lockdown time periods. However, the use of anti-VEGF medications and the rates of macular hemorrhage and subretinal fluid development significantly increased during the post-lockdown period. Based on these results, the authors conclude that “short-term care delays in the context of other emergent events or simply issues with patient follow-up may be acceptable but may come at the cost of increased need for treatment post-delay.” Scientific Reports