ABSTRACT
PURPOSE: To investigate reticular pseudodrusen (RPD) as a potential baseline factor predictive of a poor 1-year response to intravitreal ranibizumab in eyes with neovascular age-related macular degeneration. METHODS: Retrospective, monocentric case series including 98 consecutive naive neovascular age-related macular degeneration patients. Presence of RPD was assessed by two graders based on color, blue-light, fundus autofluorescence pictures, and spectral-domain optical coherence tomography. A correlation between the presence of RPD and the visual change was investigated. Other baseline characteristics studied in a monovariate and multivariate analysis were the following: age, gender, affected side, loading dose, type of neovascularization, presence of retinal pigment epithelial detachment >250 µm, subretinal or intraretinal fluid, blood over >50% of the lesion, and subfoveal choroidal thickness. RESULTS: The presence of RPD was not associated with a visual change (P = 0.96), but with a thin subfoveal choroidal thickness at baseline (P < 0.0001). The monovariate analysis showed that the presence of blood at baseline was associated with visual gain (P = 0.007). CONCLUSION: The presence of RPD at baseline was not identified as a factor associated with a poor 1-year response to ranibizumab in eyes with neovascular age-related macular degeneration. Studies with a longer follow-up may be needed to assess the impact of RPD on the visual prognosis of eyes with neovascular age-related macular degeneration.
