Quality of Life According to Visual Function in Age-related Wet Macular Degeneration Treated with Bevacizumab

Abstract

Introduction: Age-related macular degeneration constitutes a frequent cause of blindness or low vision in the older adult. The assessment of quality of life related to visual function is essential in these patients treated with Bevacizumab.

Objective: To assess the quality of life in relation to visual function in patients with age-related macular degeneration treated with Bevacizumab, at the ICO "Ramón Pando Ferrer", from January 2019 to May 2021.

Methods: Prospective longitudinal descriptive study. The sample was 52 patients and the NEI VFQ-25 questionnaire was applied before and after three doses of the intravitreal drug.

Results: Female gender predominated, the most represented age group was 60 to 79 years, the most frequent systemic disease was hypertension and the most frequent ocular disease was cataract. Almost all patients gained more than two lines in the Snellen chart, 42.3% presented a gain of 3 lines or more. The result of most of the items explored by the test, as well as the total visual function is statistically significant.

Conclusions: There was an improvement in quality of life relative to visual function in patients after being treated with Bevacizumab. There was no directly proportional relationship between improved post-treatment visual acuity and improvement in total visual function.