Choroidal Thickness Changes in Patients with Wet Age-related Macular Degeneration over One Year of Aflibercept Treatment

Aim
The aim of the study was to analyze choroidal thickness changes in treatment-naive patients with exudative age-related macular degeneration treated with aflibercept in daily clinical practice.

Materials and Methods
Thirty-six patients (36 eyes), aged 78.3±8.7 years, were enrolled in a prospective, non-randomized, one-year study. Aflibercept was administered monthly for three months and then bimonthly in a fixed regimen. Retinal and choroidal thickness were measured manually on optical coherence tomography scans.

Results
Patients gained, on average, 8.5 letters (p<0.001). Central retinal thickness decreased significantly from 337.7±126.5 µm to 272.1±123.1 µm (p<0.05). Subfoveal choroidal thickness decreased significantly after a loading phase: from 190.2 ± 97.7 µm to 177.4 ± 90.0 µm (p<0.05), but the reduction was not significant at 12 months (p=0.078). Choroidal thickness measured nasally from the fovea decreased significantly at each point of follow-up (p<0.05). Subfoveal choroidal thickness decreased significantly from 182.80 ± 91.43 µm to 164.0 ± 86.3 µm (p>0.05) only in patients with visual acuity improvement of > 5 letters on the Early Treatment Diabetic Retinopathy Study chart.

Conclusions
Subfoveal choroidal thickness in patients with neovascular age-related macular degeneration decreased after the loading phase of aflibercept treatment. At 12 months, aflibercept treatment reduced subfoveal choroidal thickness only among patients with visual acuity improvement.