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Abstract

We appreciate the detailed comparison by Gillies et al of the 5-year outcomes of eyes with neovascular age-related macular degeneration treated with anti-vascular endothelial growth factor drugs reported by the Comparison of Age-related Macular Degeneration Treatments Trials (CATT) Research Group to the outcomes reported by the Fight Retinal Blindness Study Group.1Comparison of Age-related Macular Degeneration Treatments Trials (CATT) Research Group et al.Five-year outcomes with anti-vascular endothelial growth factor treatment of neovascular age-related macular degeneration: the Comparison of Age-Related Macular Degeneration Treatments Trials.Ophthalmology. 2016; 123 (1751-1761)Google Scholar, 2Gillies M.C. Campain A. Barthelmes D. et al.Long-term outcomes of treatment of neovascular age-related macular degeneration: data from an observational study.Ophthalmology. 2015; 122 (1837-1845)Google Scholar We regret describing their prospective data collection as retrospective. We agree that the relatively small differences in outcomes are likely attributable to differences in baseline characteristics, treatment intensity and regimen, dropout rate, and random variation. In addition, we agree that the recently published recommendations on reporting outcomes will facilitate comparison of results from different studies.3Rodrigues I.A. Sprinkhuizen S.M. Barthelmes D. et al.Defining a minimum set of standardized patient-centered outcome measures for macular degeneration.Am J Ophthalmol Epub. 2016; 168 (1-12)Google Scholar Re: Comparison of Age-Related Macular Degeneration Treatments Trials (CATT) Research Group, et al.: Five-year outcomes with anti-vascular endothelial growth factor treatment of neovascular age-related macular degeneration: The Comparison of Age-Related Macular Degeneration Treatments Trials (Ophthalmology 2016;123:1751-1761)OphthalmologyVol. 124Issue 3PreviewWe congratulate the Comparison of Age-related Macular Degeneration Treatments Trials (CATT) Research Group Writing Committee for publishing the 5-year results of the CATT trial of bevacizumab and ranibizumab for neovascular age-related macular degeneration.1 The CATT long-term study highlighted an average of 3.3 letters lost 5 years after starting treatment compared with 0.7 letters lost in our study,2 where a loss of just 2.7 letters was observed at 7 years. Full-Text PDF